I would want the manufacturer of the car to supply the insurance, if it is still needed. If my car is involved in an accident, it will not be my fault.
So there is malfunction and a self driving car runs a stop light and causes an accident, I should not be held accountable, no driving controls on the car.
To me reliability will be an additional issue, if not when new all though that is not a given, when the car is a few years old. With our current technology tow truck companies stay busy towing and hauling cars to the shop. I replaced the alternator on my mini van yesterday because it failed (pieces and parts of cars do fail), just a 10 minute job, but how many redundant systems will the self driving car have to have, for fail safe in all situations.
And look at vehicle recalls and how long and how many failures it takes to get a manufacturer to issue a recall. We know from experience how difficult it is to find an issue with the software that is currently used in our cars. Even if there is a fault, it may be very difficult to reproduce.
Lets say I have a farm out in the country on a gravel road. It happens to have 3 driveways and several equipment/machine sheds in addition to my 4 car garage. How do I tell it where to park? Maybe I could use my smart phone or tablet, but then it would not be completely self driving.
Currently at least part of the sensor array is LIDAR based. This is an optical system. So what happens here in the snow belt when dirt, mud and slush is splashed on this sensor? Will it be self cleaning?
And as long as I am being picky...
In the county where I grew up and it is still this way, if a speed limit sign is knocked down by a snow plow or an accident, it may take the city or county days or longer to replace the sign. How will the car determine the speed limit as it comes into town? Maybe the car can have a data base of all of the speed limit zones in every location in the United States. Maybe the car could access a master data base, but who is going to collect all of this data and who will pay for it?
And if the speed limit signs are for a school zone, a car could come blasting into the school zone rather fast and the list goes on.
I am with Loopstick, I do not believe that this is ready for prime time in all situations.
I know my post has gotten rather long, but just one more thing.
Maybe a manufacturer can't make their system work well enough to pass what ever eventual certification is required and they program their car to pass the test but not necessarily to work correctly on the highway. Okay no manufacturer or division of a manufacturer would every do that.
Oh, wait...
Can we all say Volkswagen?