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.
