It's going to be slow until it happens in a rush, I think. There will be a tipping point where enough cars are self driving that it stops being a geeky add-on and starts being seen as a moral necessity. Roughly at the point where government statistics of manual versus self driving motor accident rates gain enough data to be comparable.
There will be a huge public to-and-fro about negligence versus freedom, with driving manual being the new driving drunk, but the insurance premiums will settle it.
Yeah, once the technology stabilizes and the legal and regulatory frameworks have been established, there will be a big wave of adoption.
I predict that many in bigger cities will give up on owning their own car, and join car sharing services.
Then you can choose between a private car just for you, or a shared ride where the car optimizes routes and picks up multiple people.
Other benefits: it's just you? take a small 2 person car. On the way to a party with some friends? Get a nice Mercedes to drive you there. Need to transport some furniture? Get a pickup.
Of course this only holds for cities and densely populated suburban regions. Or if you don't have to drive long routes on a regular basis.
I think it's going to be a war of lobbies, with "traditional" automotive companies spreading FUD, and insurance companies pressuring for faster adoption.
It's worth mentioning - which I already hinted at in another comment - that self-driving cars, awesome as this is, will be yet another area where our privacy gets compromised, same as with mobile phones. This will push governments to favour it in the long run and eventually outlaw "regular" cars altogether as too anarchic (or make using them so expensive and cumbersome that it's going to amount to the same thing).
I doubt traditional auto companies will spread FUD at first, they are gonna see this as the next shiny new thing. This is their tape -> CD moment, everyone needs to replace their hardware, it's a bonanza.
When they truly understand that it's going to turn them all into taxi makers, that owning a car is completely passé, they'll panic. That will be their DVD -> streaming moment, but it will already be too late.
>> When they truly understand that it's going to turn them all into taxi makers
I'm sure they understand that. Some even do moves in that direction, like Ford ackuiring chariot, the shared ride provider, and Mercedes collaborating with Via.
There will be a huge public to-and-fro about negligence versus freedom, with driving manual being the new driving drunk, but the insurance premiums will settle it.