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LIKE IN A Tough Mudder, you've got a few strategies when it comes to the race to launch a taxi-like service with autonomous vehicles. You can start early and keep a slow but steady pace. You can show up a bit late, then try to sprint through it. Or you can hold back, see what trips up other contenders, and then slowly work your way through the obstacles.

The big automakers tend to fall into the third category. They may have taken a few years to recognize that shared autonomous vehicles could annihilate their business model—selling human-driven cars to individual humans—but they're now making real progress toward the finish line. And today, Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler took a cautious step into the swamp stomp, announcing plans to launch a self-driving car pilot somewhere in Silicon Valley, next year.