2018 was the year self-driving cars hit a roadblock

It's been a long day. As you ride home from the office, you start to nod off. You close your eyes as the self-driving car merges onto the highway. When you’re zonked out 15 minutes later, the car changes your route because of traffic, and eventually you wake up at your destination. 

That’s the dream of autonomous cars — and some very smart people, including Google’s Sergey Brin, thought they’d already be driving people around public streets by now. That hasn’t happened. In fact, in 2018, progress stalled, sometimes with deadly consequences.