It's easy to think of the political obstacles if you are expecting this to happen overnight. But it will be gradual. People will share the road with robots for a while, and when it's clear how much safer the robots are, there will start to be roads and then areas where people aren't allowed to drive. As for "tak[ing] away people's privilege to operate a vehicle they own and paid for," they can feel free to drive on private property. Even today I'm not allowed to drive my off-road truck on public roads because it doesn't have proper smog equipment and mudflaps, and I own and paid for it with my own money. It's really not that unreasonable when it's a matter of public safety and the restrictions only apply to public roadways.

As for the automation stealing jobs argument, that's a whole 'nother can of worms.