My background is in Traffic Engineering, and I'm a recent Model 3 owner. I have played with AP, and I'm very impressed with how far Tesla has have gotten with the autonomous driving technology, and the challenge in making it work throughout all of the different road configurations around the world.
While it's amazing to experience, there are obviously issues with the hardware/software, some of which may not be solvable without looking at the "Big Picture". My thoughts to date:
1. Tesla's, and probably other AP systems have difficulty with stationary objects within the road allowance. A good example is a parked fire truck on the side of the road. They do much better with moving objects, such as other cars, pedestrians, bikes etc. Barriers would be another problem object. Tesla's steering is predominately visual (video) based. Interestingly, Lidar, if added to the system, might help in the stationary object scenario by simply saying to the system that there is a solid object located in front of the car, of a certain size, which will collide with the vehicle if it stays on it's current course - you'd need to program the Lidar to allow small objects such as trash on the highway so you don't get false positives etc. Musk disagrees, but time will tell if this technology also needs to be incorporated into the system as others have done, to provide a reliable system going forward;
2. What's a reliable system anyways? The recent Boeing experience will tell you that even a plane with a very impressive safety record, if it fails due to software issues rather than human error, will be considered as unsafe. In other words, we accept accidents due to human failure, but we don't accept accidents due to computer failures. So the 'standard' of safety for AP systems is going to have to be considerably higher than the current 'human' safety statistics, we can't just say that AP is better than manual driving because the safety record with AP is higher, it has to be way higher (maybe 5-10 times?);
3. Right now we have <5% AP going on on our major highways (these highways are mostly purposely designed to a uniform design standard, good luck with urban roads!), as we transition to more vehicles driving under AP, I think there will eventually be a need for vehicles to talk to each other while in close proximity, something like bluetooth 'chatting'. This could make the whole experience much more seamless and safer, vehicles would know when someone is wishing to pass, trucks in particular would be good, especially long "B" trains so neighboring vehicles would know not to drive underneath a long trailer as has happened already;
4. For the stationary issue, I think there needs to be 'markers' placed on key stationary objects, particularly on major freeways, to help AP systems. (A little solar powered transmitter?). A little beacon placed in the front of the start of a barrier, or on the back of emergency vehicles would make sure that the stationary collision issue isn't a problem going forward.
5. This all points to the need to look at AP international design standards, that all car manufactures would have to adhere to, just like they do in pollution control stuff now. These standards maybe should set out where full AP is 'allowable' to use. A road designated as an AP road would have whatever physical features on it which would allow full AP to work reliably, without the need for driver intervention, which is designed and maintained to meet an established minimum safety standard (For example, emergency vehicles using a designated AP road would have to have markers on them etc).
6. Our current situation, where a Private Company(s) (Tesla and others) are experimenting with AP technology on our public roads, using the public as beta testers in effect is problematic when you look at the big picture.... Right now most drivers are what I'd call "with it", I can't imagine what the roads would look like if we took all of the non-AP cars off the road, gave everyone AP technology, and told them to please pay attention, etc.
Musk has said that he thinks that the steering wheels will be removed in 2-3 years as the technology is 'that good' (self driving robos etc). Can you imagine what that would look like when that barrier is coming at you at 60mph? It would make the Boeing situation look like childs play....
John