"All of these companies' efforts fall into one of two kinds of technologies, said Bryant Walker Smith, an engineer and lawyer at the University of South Carolina: cars that do something everywhere or cars that do everything somewhere.
"The current state of technology," Smith said, "is that we don't have vehicles that can do all of the driving all of the time." Vehicles like those at Gateway will be limited to specific conditions, community, and geography. Those vehicles require slow speed, simplified environment, and some form of supervision.
Add-ons to traditional vehicles keep getting better and do more driving, Smith said, sort of a "mushy middle" of technology, but at some point, humans still have to re-engage. People tend to trust the automation too much and are too easily distracted.
Fully automated cars may not be as versatile as today's cars, driving you to work one day, to the beach the next day, and for a 300-mile trip the next.
"The issue is location, location, location," he said."