alt Hacker NewsMost things aren't absolutes. This is no exception. The vehicles can operate on their own the majority of the time. That is a form of autonomy, albeit incomplete.
You are subject to road signs, traffic, police directions, etc while driving. In the event of a natural disaster it seems feasible that you could end up in a situation where you don't know how you ought to proceed. So neither are you "free of external influence or control" in an absolute sense.
A human driver does not have to call a remote operator if the traffic lights are off.
This situation does not require a sophistic argument that we are not autonomous because we rely on the sun. If a child walks alone to school without asking for directions, it walks autonomously. If it has to call its parents or uses a GPS phone, it is not autonomous. This is really not that hard.