&gt;so much physical, legal, and regulatory infrastructure needs to change to make this viable that it will be more than 2 decades until we see self-driving cars as a reality across multiple cities.<p>It could be a lot more straightforward than you suspect. The three things we have going for us:<p>1. Car accidents are almost always resolved by deals made between insurance companies (this will be doubly true with unpiloted cars, which will presumably not commit criminal acts)<p>2. The same few large companies are likely to deal in insurance of piloted and autonomous vehicles, so there&#x27;s not a huge incentive to go sue-crazy<p>3. If autonomous vehicles cause significantly fewer accidents and companies can charge the same amount for insurance covering them, that is a huge win for some very large companies with the power to get the ball rolling.<p>Increased vehicle safety will be a big win for these companies in the short term, although in the long term some price discounts might be factored into the cost of autonomous vehicle insurance.