I have to disagree with this. Anyone who’s driven through a real winter knows that true autonomous driving will not happen in the foreseeable future. I can’t even use cruise control for 3-4 days after a snow storm. When it’s -40º outside and there’s black ice on the roads humans have a difficult time. How’s the computer going to do? And how about when it’s snowing and the cameras get obscured - I guess we just stop in the middle of the road until the sun comes out?
May I ask why?
Why do people think that computers with software can't handle these situations like a human can? Humans have two HD cameras (eyes) on a swivel mount (neck), which can only swivel about 90 degrees left and right, and about 45 degrees up and down. We have a brain, which is just a biological computer that accepts sensory input (eyes, ears, nose, etc.), processes that data (pattern recognition), accesses historical databases (memory), and uses decision trees based on those databases to determine an outcome. BTW, the human brain has about a 120ms lag - which should totally freak you out when you think about it - everything you see and think is happening RIGHT NOW, actually happened 120ms in the past. But that's another discussion.
Since we can build computers and processors that can read sensory data much faster than we can (human eyesight is roughly 60fps), access databases much faster than we can, with much more accuracy, we should be able to handle anything a human can handle. We've proven that computers have a massively faster reaction time versus humans. While it takes you 120ms to process that child's bouncing ball coming into the street, and then your personal reaction time to decide how to handle it (swerve, slam on the breaks, etc.), a computer can see that ball and react 10x faster, applying the breaks or turning the wheel.
Most cars have traction-control, which senses when the car is slipping, as in your example of black ice, and attempts to alter power from wheel to wheel to regain control. Many times this happens before we even know what's going on - for example in hydroplaning. You hit a puddle of water and hydroplane, but the car reacts and maintains control - you feel an odd sensation of the car changing direction, or vibrating as it pumps the breaks dozens of times per second.
And snow covering the cameras? Why can't the windshield wipers automatically engage and clear the view for the cameras? If the cameras (which are inside the car) can't see the road, it's very likely your human cameras can't see the road either. What would you do if you couldn't see the road? Slow down as safely as you thought possible and possibly even stop the car - turning on your hazards? Why can't the computer in the car do the same thing? It attempts to clear the windshield, and if it can't then it slows down the car, turning on the hazards, and comes to a stop.
Oh, and on top of all that, we as humans do all our driving with 2 cameras. Our Tesla's have 8 cameras that can see all around it. We have to check our blind spot by turning our heads, which means we no longer can see what's ahead of us. The Tesla can see the blind spot and what's ahead of it, and what's behind it at the same time.