It'll probably take at least 40-50 years before autonomous vehicles become the norm. The interesting thing will be what happens in the meantime, when there's a mix of autonomous and human driven vehicles.
Will the laws change to have 'autonomous only' lanes? Will they replace HOV lanes? Will autonomous vehicles be allowed to make maneuvers that human driven cars cannot in order to improve traffic flow, such as driving through red lights if determined safe?
It was only 60 years between the Wright brothers and the moon landing. And considering the rate of technological advance is increasing, I think autonomous vehicles will take much less time. I can't even imagine what things will be like in 50 years.
The tech can make it possible in just 5-7 years what matters is how much time govt will take to formalize a law.. which probably you rightly said 40/50 years.
Also, getting people to buy them. There are still many, many cars from the mid 80's on the road, chugging along. The used car market is nothing to shake a stick at.
I'm really, really hoping the manual drive cars abandoned for autonomous cars are maximally recycled and not just left to rot in myriad junk yards.
Will the laws change to have 'autonomous only' lanes? Will they replace HOV lanes? Will autonomous vehicles be allowed to make maneuvers that human driven cars cannot in order to improve traffic flow, such as driving through red lights if determined safe?