Does silicon valley think they can do anything, regardless the industry, better than the incumbents? It is easy to disrupt (when capital is cheap) but harder to improve. I think expectations of technological progress have become untethered from reality (as happened in the last dot-com boom and bust 20 years ago). This time the bust may be even worse.
It also seems to me that improving public and mass transit would be a more proximate solution to traffic deaths. Every one will die of some cause or another. as medicine improves the share of deaths due to accidents should increase. Even with increasing medical capacity to treat diseases traffic deaths only account for 1.5 % of all annual deaths. Maybe silicon valley would be better to spend its talents improving health care and preventative medicine. But that is not as sexy to pitch to wall street and the public as Jetsons fantasies. Recently Silicon Valley's contribution to healthcare was Theranos, who Tim Draper still believes was unfairly maligned by the press.
Tesla cars are a reality and continue to improve self-driving, efficiency and safety. General Motors and Chrysler went bust a few years ago and had to be bailed out. VW cheated on diesel emissions. The incumbents suck.