"Bryant Walker Smith, assistant professor of law at the University of South Carolina, said the law is intended to regulate the development of a car that will at one point not need active monitoring, which is what Uber is doing.
“My view of the law that was passed is that it was intended to apply to this kind of vehicle,” Smith said.
Overall, Smith says the statute is for “aspirational” autonomous vehicles. If all companies took it literally like Uber, the statute would likely not apply to any cars in development, as they would have to start out the test with cars that are already fully self-driving."