“under all conditions” in the SAE chart actually means “in any weather where public safety people have not closed the roads.”
I have to take Jeff’s side of the bet. I have a Level 2 car, but in reduced-visibilty conditions it reverts to Level 1 adaptive cruise control, or to Level 0 bupkis assistance. If I had a level 5 car without a steering wheel, I’d be shivering in the dark in an unexpected snowstorm. Not acceptable.
I have zero clue when vehicles will be able to drive themselves, I’m really wondering if I’d like what I’ve heard Elon talk about where we don’t have to own cars anymore and we just call a hella CHEAP taxi 
although I’d only perfer it if it’s really cheap.
This would be a very interesting development if it actually did happen but considering the automation of travel would put so many hard working drivers oit of a career it would also be a scary development for where it could lead to
I’ve been taking Waymo in the greater Phoenix for about six months and it’s been great. Here’s a video showing me in one: https://twitter.com/seligerj/status/1747764944945467728/video/1
It’s hard to imagine self-driving cars won’t be common 2030, given where we are now, and the progress being made by Luminar, Mobile Eye, and others.
Interesting bet. I would say, in the United States probably yes, but outside no, since they are overall less willing to restructure their cities around convenience of driving a car. It is a difference I really notice in Auckland (New Zealand) vs. Europe.
It will also be fun to watch the approach to liability. With human drivers, some amount of people get killed in road traffic (that number is in the order of 1 in 10,000 per year in the US), and basically nobody cares. If we, on the other hand, get squeamish about people being killed by machines — self driving cars, then just for that reason, self driving cars will have to drive much more carefully than humans, which crucially often means much slower. Oops. But, car companies are probably good enough at marketing to avoid such scenario.
Also there is rumor that current ‘self driving’ cars are, for all practical intents and purposes, remotely driven over the equivalent of a zoom call.
hopefully this doesnt ruin the suspense, but as of aug 9 2024, waymo will be in 7 cities by year end, up from 3 last year.
Zoox will be in 4.
I think all of the top 10 cities should have coverage except new york.
So IMO the odds are in favor of carmack at around 75%-25% depending on definition.
Here’s a 2025 ChatGPT deep research summary, from 6/1/2025 – the midpoint of the bet..
The 2030 Self‑Driving Car Bet_ Status Update as of 2025.pdf (1.3 MB)
Bottom line: At this midpoint, Atwood appears more likely to win the bet if we go by the cautious consensus and current state of technology.
Carmack’s scenario requires a continuation and acceleration of recent advances – not impossible, especially given the competitive push in the industry, but a lot has to go right in a short time. The next few years will be crucial. If by 2027 we see fully driverless operations scaling to more cities and handling nasty weather, then momentum might swing to Carmack. If instead progress stays incremental and confined (e.g. robo-taxis work only in Sun Belt cities with safety drivers on standby, etc.), then Atwood’s skepticism will look on point. As of mid-2025, the safe bet (no pun intended) leans toward Atwood.
Yet, the race is still very much on – and even Atwood openly wants to be proven wrong. For tech observers, it will be fascinating to watch whether the autonomous vehicle industry can defy the doubters and deliver a genuine Level 5 car by the end of the decade, or whether it will turn out that 2030 was indeed too soon for the self-driving revolution.
