I think there's another thing going on here and we've seen a similar pattern before with electrical cars about 10 years ago.

Ten years ago was when most of the car industry believed it had decades to adapt to full EV. It turns out that they had much less than a decade. By 2017 most manufacturers were scrambling to accelerate timelines for internal R&D when they realized competitors had other timelines and were about to grab some serious market share. This is now playing out in the market. Several ICE production lines have been shut down (GM, Ford, etc). Most manufacturers have launched or are about to launch full EVs. At this point several manufacturers are putting billions in making mass production happen in the next few years.

I predict the same will happen with autonomous driving. Most manufacturers are completely unprepared for it and behind with their R&D. They are actively looking to buy as much time as they can get because they know they won't be there. However, some manufacturers are ahead of the curve here and it's not just Tesla. When this stuff gets good enough, it means some manufacturers will have a huge competitive advantage over basically everything else. Everything you read about this needs to be put in this context.

In other words, some manufacturers are dragging their heels here and it's the same manufacturers that are also struggling to adapt to full EV. And they are using the same strategies to manipulate the timelines. Think futuristic looking concept cars that will never drive, lots of lobbying about how cool their R&D is, and a distinct lack of commitment to any timelines, combined with regular reports on serious safety issues that are obviously going to delay everything by decades. That's what this article says. What it translates to is: several manufacturers are getting to level 5 autonomy in the next few years and it is going to take decades for everybody else to catch up and mass produce this stuff.

Tesla is probably over confident about the timelines but well on track to making lots of progress in the next few years nevertheless. Waymo looks like they are making progress as well. However, they are held back by the notion that they are more of a pure tech play and less of manufacturing/logistics play. In other words, they are dependent on the before mentioned manufacturers dragging their heels.

IMHO several manufacturers are close enough to solving most of the issues here that there are going to be a few leaps forward in the next few years. These leaps are going to force the agenda for the rest of the industry. Mostly the timelines for autonomous and a switch to full EV are actually aligned.

By the time most cars will be EVs, most of them will also be fully autonomous. That's roughly 15-20 years from now. Plenty of time to tackle any remaining issues with sensors, snow, and other edge cases. Yes, that's hard but people are throwing billions at these problems and making rapid progress. The first level 5 cars might be on the market within as little as 2-5 years. The biggest hurdle here is non technical: legislation. Tesla is being ambitious here (obviously) but even in 5 years they'd have the market largely to themselves.