Despite tragic accidents, the self-driving car money trail tells one story: They’re here. They’re autonomous. Get used to it.

Waymo-branded self-driving Chrysler Pacifica. Photo: FCA.

It doesn’t take much research to at least get a “Zen sense,” if not a quantitative sense, that auto enthusiasts tend to be, to say the least, ambivalent about the self-driving vehicle juggernaut.

And that’s not hard to understand: it's all about the sense of individual freedom and control that comes from owning and driving your own vehicle. The American driver knows that he or she can, theoretically, at least, decide on any given day to pack up the car and go anywhere in this vast country—whether it’s a temporary vacation or a permanent move.