Just FYI, many other high-level experts on this space like Anthony Levandowski who actually worked with Sebastian Thrun after meeting him at the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. Said the same thing.
There's a reason why I asked if you could share your work. Because those two individuals are clearly at the top of their field. If your thesis is correct, then it's easily worth 100+M if not 1B+ USD in value.
It's easy to be hyper critical, compared to actually being in the trenches trying to solve these hard problems.