they have gotten this car to do complex and exotic movements via automated manipulations of the car's human-oriented interface, that is, a single steering wheel

they have gotten this car to do complex and exotic movements via automated manipulations of the car's human-oriented interface, that is, a single steering wheel, four wheels that turn in the same direction, and then the brakes / accelerator. It seems though that if you are actually trying to design autonomous cars that feature greater maneuverability than what is normally possible you'd instead ditch the whole assumption of a single steering column and all of that and just consider all the wheels as independent, or maybe add more wheels that engage for some kinds of maneuvers, or probably a whole lot of other things that im sure all the car people here know are possible if you are no longer constrained to controls created for a single human with only four limbs and extremely limited coordination and reaction time.