They're deploying AVs way (1-2 years, at least) behind their own schedules, by their own admission. Ask anyone inside of the industry (including Musk) and they'

They're deploying AVs way (1-2 years, at least) behind their own schedules, by their own admission. Ask anyone inside of the industry (including Musk) and they'll tell you that the problem is the long march of nines I mentioned earlier. This is also why you saw a bunch of AV startups with < 50 employees that got big initial funding rounds but folded after a couple of years - it's pretty easy to grab a few dozen grad students, slap some LIDAR on a car, encode basic road rules, and get a demo working that's compelling to investors. Once you get past that initial pitch though, you get into the weeds of trying to progress without causing regressions elsewhere. Also, what makes you think those expectations were grounded in linearity? Waymo went from an initial project at Google in early 2009 to driving 10 complex 100 mile routes without intervention in mid 2010 - on the surface, it would have seemed they were 95% of the way there. Improvement has been sublinear for a very long time and everyone in the AV industry is aware of it.