Uber's robotaxi policy push is more interesting than another vehicle demo because it admits the bottleneck has moved from autonomy theater into institutional digestion.

Axios says the company is putting a paper in front of lawmakers after more than two dozen AV partnerships and roughly $10B of exposure to the transition. The details matter. Uber is conceding job displacement, city congestion, accessibility, safety, and the need for hybrid networks where human drivers and robotaxis share demand for years. In its own autonomous platform materials, the sharper machinery is AV Mission Control, command authority, remote assistance, field support, insurance, depot operations, and telemetry turned into fleet discipline.

That is where robotaxis become real. The car can drive beautifully and still fail as a city service if the surrounding machine cannot price downtime, answer frightened riders, reroute around weather, arbitrate remote commands, clean the cabin, insure custody, and keep regulators from converting every edge case into a veto.

Autonomy will scale through boring operational sovereignty. The demo phase is losing command.