Articles like this are going to be more and more common as journalists go "driverless cars!" without making the slightest bit of effort to understand the mechanics - the logic of driverless cars. Collision avoidance has been in place in autonomous robots for 30+ years. The time for ethical discussions was then, not now, as the codification of vehicular behavior relies on code and decisions that has been real-world tested since Carter was president.
Understanding the technology is never a requirement for writing about the philosophical problems it looks like it might pose if you don't understand it.
You can't blame them though, it's not like Sebastian Thrun made an introduction suitable for anyone who vaguely recalls their high school math classes or anything.