California remains the center of autonomous car research and industry with carefully thought out regulation designed with public input. Laissez-faire regulation and rolling out the red carpet for bad actors in Arizona didn't change that. It just led to the predictable result.
California remains the center because the companies are already headquartered there due to decisions made 50 years ago by the military for radar technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo That's despite it's often idiotic regulations driven by populist ignorance.
A governance policy in favor of developments of new technology most certainly can have an impact over time.
> Laissez-faire regulation and rolling out the red carpet for bad actors in Arizona didn't change that.
Oh, red carpet for bad actors? Where is it that Uber is headquartered again? And doesn't Waymo also test in Arizona?
> California remains the center because the companies are already headquartered there due to decisions made 50 years ago by the military for radar technology:
Poor argument. It doesn't explain why the auto industry didn't hire all the self driving car engineers to work in the Midwest or why the communications companies didn't hire them all to work on the East Coast. Google itself has offices all over the world, but it put the Chauffeur team in Mountain View. If you really think that the military industrial complex that started Silicon Valley gives it an insurmountable advantage for building a self driving car company, Arizona's decision to even try to pull them away looks even more stupid.
> Oh, red carpet for bad actors? Where is it that Uber is headquartered again?
In California, which reaps all the benefits from taxing its highly paid employees without incurring any of the costs of its out-of-control self driving car program, which Arizona's governor welcomed with much fanfare.
> And doesn't Waymo also test in Arizona?
It does. It also tests extensively in California and has engineered its vehicles to comply with the new California regulations that allow cars on public roads that have no human driver inside. Notably, all the highly paid engineers remain in California, and the advanced testing facility with highly paid testers (unlike the temp workers hired for the public road tests) was built in California too because advanced testing on private facilities is correctly less regulated. Arizona's problem is that it underregulated testing on public roads.
>If you really think that the military industrial complex
Please put some effort into reading before replying. The military funding for Stanford is one of the main reason so many tech companies started there. There are now massive network effects that make it the current tech capital but that doesn't mean new incentives can't start new tech hubs elsewhere.
You completely missed the boat about Uber being headquartered in California and still acting completely outside of sane ethical boundaries (their police spying program, etc). In other words, California rolls out the red carpet for these garbage tech companies already. The moral or consumer focused high-ground you are trying to imply doesn't exist. There is only NIMBYism.
Google built the testing headquarters in California because that's where their talent is at, nothing more, nothing less.
Advancing technology overall is nice, but does not benefit Arizona any more than if they let some other sucker state do the experimenting.
Not everything has to be tied to a direct effect, but if you think this, maybe you could explain at least one mechanism by which you think Arizona could actually indirectly get some benefit?
To advance technology and make AZ attractive to other R&D. Not everything has to be tied to a direct economic boom.