Now your Tesla can come pick you up. California says that’s not ‘driverless’

"“The law is flexible, and a lot of this comes down to how does government feel about these technologies, and equally important, how does government feel about the company behind them,” said Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina and one of the world’s leading experts on driverless vehicle law.

“If they’re not receptive, any regulator can find language they could use to shut this down,” he said. “If they are receptive, then at least until there’s a crash [companies] will have a lot of flexibility in terms of what they’re able to do.”"