This is doing correctly what the car company did wrong. They start with a system that does not have a fatal incident upon failure. Meaning that even 1% or 10% failure rate is totally fine and possibly positive in terms of ROI.

On the other hand, even 0.01% is not acceptable when the system is responsible for human lives.

I also believe that cameras and visible spectrum are scalable and sufficient, and there is evidence it is so. The most reliable system driving cars is the homo sapiens and apart from a bit of proprioceptive, vehicles are operated based on vision sensors(eyes).

To conclude, I find it a clever move to start refining the technology in a field where ROI is in dollar terms and not in lives saved.

To the found: Good luck, i am jealous.