So actually, all of the reasons you mention (with the exception of “more control”) are stupid too. Unfortunately, the people reporting on this clearly don’t understand the technology well enough to write on it.

a) Bi-directional nature of the port: headphone ports are already bi-directional. How the hell do you think…

more relevantly, the team already existed in San Francisco. The guy driving the car is Cruise Automation founder Kyle Vogt. They’re based in SF and were testing cars here prior to the GM acquisition. Now, the only difference is the cars are made by Chevy.

It’s “Caltech”, not “CalTech”.