No its not, that is kind of my point. It only needs to be better at driving than the average human to be technically viable. And yes, it may very well be allowed on Indian or Chinese roads before its allowed in America, but that's human fiction at work not demonstrable ability.
I'm not talking about technical viability! I'm talking about product viability. Can this hypothetical device be manufactured and sold for a profit? Can it be used, profitably, for some purpose, for which it will be cheaper or in some way preferable to existing solutions? It is not enough that this autonomous car can drive around the block without crashing; it has to be good enough, reliable enough, efficient enough, that you can build a profitable business around the unique service it can provide. That is much harder than simply passing a standard driving test.
Yes of course it is enough, if that is your definition of 'viable product', that should be self-evident. It only needs to be better than a human at driving for it to be a viable product. Are you prepared to pay the insurance premium on a non-autonomous transport appliance in 10 years time ? I'm betting you won't.
"Driving" is not one single monolithic problem. "Driving" is a whole array of complicated problems. The "standard driving test" exercises a very limited subset. "Better than a human at driving" is a very broad and poorly-specified claim.
Hell yes I will still be using a "non-autonomous transport appliance" in ten years - it's called a "motorcycle" :) - and I don't want your high-tech self-driving future if it has no room for that.
Clearly 'driving' to you is an expression of personal freedom - not body transport. And that's good and well, but finding unrelated justifications to defend what is essentially a hobby is silly.
People will continue to spend stupid amounts of money on hobbies. I'm not going not hand in the keys to my Landcruiser or my CRF250. But I don't leave those parked at the train station as a rule either.
You asked me a personal question, so I gave you a personal answer, somewhat flippantly as I disagree with your premise.
That remark was separate from and unrelated to the actual point I've been trying to make: there is a very significant gulf between the notion of a "self-driving car" as a form of automation built into a vehicle which is still under the control and responsibility of a human driver, and the notion of a "self-driving car" which is a fully autonomous robot built in the shape of a car, that must be capable of doing something reasonable in all situations without depending on a human. The latter is a much harder problem than the former, and we don't yet know whether it can be solved in a way that yields a practical, profitable transportation system of the sort many people like to fantasize about when they discuss (for example) Google's autonomous vehicle program.
