I’m way less confident of self driving in the hands of the general public when differed maintenance often results in people and even companies driving with squealing breaks and balding tires etc.
Self-driving vehicles need aircraft-type maintenance. Yet there's nothing like the FAA to enforce a minimum equipment list, maintenance intervals, or signoffs by approved mechanics.
Is there a scratch or chip in the scanner dome? Are both the primary and backup steering actuators working? Is there any damage to the vehicle fender sensors? Is dispatch allowed with some redundant components not working? If so, for how long?
Here's the FAA's Minimum Equipment List for single-engine aircraft.[1] For each item, you can see if it has to be working to take off, and, if not, how long is allowed to fix it. There's nothing like that for self-driving land vehicles.
What's the fleet going to look like at 8 years of wear and tear?
[1] https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/MMEL_SE_Rev_2_Draft....
That's a hyperbolic false equivalence.
Aircraft typically carry hundreds of people and can crash to the ground. As long as a self-driving car can detect when it is degraded, it can just stop with the blinkers on. Usually with 0 - 2 people inside.
Cars are more numerous and could spontaneously either plow into pedestrians, or rear-end someone, causing chain damage and, quite often, a spillage of toxic chemicals (e.g., a cistern carrying acid/fuel/pesticide).
Plus, you have a problem of hostile actors having easier access to cars compared to planes.
Forced “safety breaks” due to the newly proven dangers of sitting in a car for more than 20 minutes. Taking place at our safety parter McDonalds.
Deliberately taking certain routes and encouraging you to stop at partner stores.
Making you pay rent for the self driving.
Increasing the subscription costs continuously.
Which means the software can safely assume the vehicle will behave within a relatively narrow operating range.
And maybe the software can be designed to be coupled to a vehicle dynamics model that can be updated.
Overall I feel safer in a Waymo than a rideshare now and I only spent a few days being able to use Waymo...
10 years down the line, they won't have that risk.
Cars are very expensive things to buy and own.