Autonomous vehicles are probably not as close as we’d like nor as far in the distance as we might believe, but they’re not road-ready yet and hurdling those last few obstacles may be more difficult than all the ones that came before them. From Lee Gomes at Technology Review:

“Would you buy a self-driving car that couldn’t drive itself in 99 percent of the country? Or that knew nearly nothing about parking, couldn’t be taken out in snow or heavy rain, and would drive straight over a gaping pothole?

If your answer is yes, then check out the Google Self-Driving Car, model year 2014.

Of course, Google isn’t yet selling its now-famous robotic vehicle and has said that its technology will be thoroughly tested before it ever does. But the car clearly isn’t ready yet, as evidenced by the list of things it can’t currently do—volunteered by Chris Urmson, director of the Google car team.

Google’s cars have safely driven more than 700,000 miles. As a result, ‘the public seems to think that all of the technology issues are solved,’ says Steven Shladover, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies. ‘But that is simply not the case.’

No one knows that better than Urmson. But he says he is optimistic about tackling outstanding challenges and that it’s ‘going to happen more quickly than many people think.'”