Each week, Kevin Roose, technology columnist at The New York Times, discusses developments in the tech industry, offering analysis and maybe a joke or two. Want this newsletter in your inbox? Sign up here.

One perk — or hazard, I suppose — of being a technology writer for the past few years has been getting invited to ride in a bunch of autonomous vehicles. I’ve been shuttled around in nearly a dozen self-driving prototypes, including a Ford in Michigan, an Uber in Pennsylvania and a Chrysler minivan in the California desert.

Whenever anyone asks what it’s like to ride in self-driving cars, my reply is: “Which self-driving cars?” Casual observers tend to talk about the progress of autonomous vehicles as if they’re a homogeneous category, but there is an entire spectrum of capability and safety. I’ve had calm and boring drives, and terrifying white-knuckle trips. The best results aren’t always from the companies with the most money or the most sophisticated marketing campaigns.

This week, the self-driving car industry reached a turning point, one at which the mixed progress of self-driving car projects became very clear.