Mindel isn't saying full automation can't or shouldn't happen for cars. His point is empirical and cautionary: usually when we get excited about automating X,

Mindel isn't saying full automation can't or shouldn't happen for cars. His point is empirical and cautionary: usually when we get excited about automating X, it turns out that X is better with some human supervision. It's not really a contentious claim. I think many proponents of self-driving cars would be ok with some human input – steering wheels, changing routes, feedback on driving performance, etc