A lot hinges on whether one considers level 4 or level 5 to be "self-driving".
I wouldn't want to own a car without a steering wheel, sometimes you have to do weird stuff like park on a specific patch of grass at a rural wedding and it's going to be easier to do that myself than try and convince a robot.
But a car that can a) handle 'most' driving for some value of 'most' and can b) safely hand over or come to a stop under basically all circumstances including a sleeping driver? That's actually a much simpler task and it's a very useful vehicle. I would want one of those even if I lived somewhere where road conditions were such that I had to steer it myself on a daily basis.
Like in Arizona, once you got to paved road you could enter an address in Phoenix and kick back in actual safety, without having to worry about taking over at a moment's notice. I think that's achievable in 10-20 years, and it could be less.
I wouldn't want to own a car without a steering wheel, sometimes you have to do weird stuff like park on a specific patch of grass at a rural wedding and it's going to be easier to do that myself than try and convince a robot.
But a car that can a) handle 'most' driving for some value of 'most' and can b) safely hand over or come to a stop under basically all circumstances including a sleeping driver? That's actually a much simpler task and it's a very useful vehicle. I would want one of those even if I lived somewhere where road conditions were such that I had to steer it myself on a daily basis.
Like in Arizona, once you got to paved road you could enter an address in Phoenix and kick back in actual safety, without having to worry about taking over at a moment's notice. I think that's achievable in 10-20 years, and it could be less.