The longer the farce goes on, the more I think the laggers in the self driving car industry are more trying to wait out regulators than actually get good enough.
That is - gamble GOP alignment leading to to regulatory capture such that the bar is lowered enough that they can declare the cars safe.
Despite what you hear from certain media voices, there are effectively no performance-based regulatory barriers in the US. You can claim any autonomy level you want at any time and aside from the small number of states that have a real permit process that rises above a rubber stamp (literally just California), regulators are reactive to headlines of your system failing, not its actual performance.
Even California's system is lax enough that you can drive a Tesla semi through it.