I know... As I said, could happen sooner.
But see below:
Consider car replacement cycles. The first year of mandated hailable autonomy might not happen till a specific year (e.g. 2050), say, roughly ten years after the first time Ontario legally lets car drive kids/drunks through snowstorms. Circa 2040 (close to what you think). Or something like that. Picture it that way. Circa 2050. Then add 20 years of new/used car replacement cycles -- shrinking used market -- and new car purchases having mandated hailable autonomy. Consider we need enough intelligence in all cars to figure out its occupants are vandals or has had a heart attack and autonomously call for appropriate emergency attention. Then hailability finally hit huge numbers, like 100,000 hailable autonomous cars in Mississauga. Circa 2070.
I'm reposting a different post of mine, for sake of completeness as this post is buried elsewhere:
Here's some pertinent information, which I posted in another forum.
Useful information about
NTHSA self driving capability levels
Level 0 -- Your old manual-shift car
Level 1 -- Your newer car with cruise control.
Level 2 -- That fancy car with automatic lanekeeping and adaptive cruise.
Level 3 -- You can safely text behind the wheel, but must intervene in an alarm.
Level 4 -- It can self-valet empty. It also can drive your kids unaccompanied to hockey practice in the middle of a snowstorm.
Tesla Autopilot is nearly Level 3; although legally it must be treated as Level 2 with full attention mandatory, and working/surfing/texting still not allowed. Eventually we may reach a point where Level 3 self-driving vehicle drivers are legally allowed to do light (interruptible) work like reading, watching movies, texting, etc, but must mandatorily intervene, say, within 10 seconds of an alarm (seatshaker, wheelshaker, klaxon alarm, etc).
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Level 4 self-driving cars is going to be a big, wonderful, beautiful, very fancy Pandora's Box, with both rainbows/unicorns and skull/crossbones beaming out of it simultaneously, both utopia and dystopia. You will yank the giftwrap off the Pandora Box, suddenly causing it to pop Jack-In-A-Box style in a beautifully kablooey pop
in a big shower of confetti/glitter -- figuratively speaking.
- Efficiency -- With the prospect of empty vehicles going home to do tasks for kids or spouses, this could be a traffic disaster for freeways. Legislation may be needed if people abuse the privelage of sending empty vehicles dozens of miles.
- Moral -- Cars that are faced with an unavoidable fatality decision are going to decide whether to save the occupants or pedestrians. Picture the scenario of a baby stroller suddenly running in front of the car at the last second, from behind roadside newspaper boxes (unavoidably unseen by the car's sensors until too late; now a fatality has to happen). Car must instantly decide to crash into baby stroller OR suddenly veer into a parked car/lamppost 1 meter to the side. Legally solve this. Now consider the sole occupant of car is your child being soccermomed unaccompanied to school. Whose life goes? Whose Responsibility? Legislative? Insurance? Etc.
- Manned/Unmanned interactions Unmanned vehicles interacting with manned vehicles (bicyclists, drivers, buses, ambulances, police cars). How can a police car pull over an empty vehicle for an expired plate? Will governments be comfortable legally allowing empty vehicles? Will police be? Etc.
- Regulatory -- What you're allowed to do and what you're not allowed to do. People without a driver license stepping into a car? Drunk people stepping into the backseat of an empty self-driving car? How old must be children to go unaccompanied in a driverless car? Mailicious passengers trying to damage a self-driving taxi into causing an accident? Are you allowed to sleep for 8 hours in the bed at the back of a self-driving RV, or truck cab of a self-driving truck? What about self driving public transit (uber scale? carpool scale? minibus scale? large bus scale?) Etc. Etc. Etc.
- Robustness -- How many redundant sensors and cameras must a self-driving car have (e.g. safely function at damage/loss to 25% of sensors? 50% of sensors? 75% of sensors?), so they don't cause accidents when flying road debris damages a camera. This also affects regulatory and insurance, and creates ideas of futuristic safety testing regimens, to ensure they can survive major damage and still safely recover.
- Insurance -- What the insurance companies are willing to let you do with a Level 4 driverless car. Including all the above.
- Safety -- Can a level 4 self-driving car safely drive in the middle of a blinding record rainstorm or major snowstorm blizzard, while carrying children that don't know what to do in an emergency? Even Google Car is currently unable to drive reliably in a rainstorm at this time. Level 4 chauffers (like unmanned Uber) isn't going to be legal until you solve this.
- Security -- Must be upped massively. Hackers. It's already happened. Hackers remotely kill a jeep causing the car to almost park itself on a freeway! And hackers have already blinded driverless cars. Laser pointer tricks a driverless car.
- Cost -- The cost of solving all the above, factored into your car's sticker price, your government taxes, and your monthly bills (including insurance). It may be so expensive that most carowners will give up carownership, and just hail a neighbour's empty unused car, coming over to your house Uber-style (as a result, conveniently paying a part of that neighbour's car bill!).
We will see a hell of a lot of Level 3 soon (Tesla Autopilot is already almost Level 3).
We will even see Level 4 in designated areas (e.g. campuses, special lanes, designated roads, etc), maybe not too long after, but would not include the necessary intelligence to self-taxi people yet.
But the full legally allowed Level 4 self-chauffering freedom will build up like the Big One (the earthquake) for a VERY LONG TIME, and then go pop in a spetacular fancy Pandora Box of wonderfulness.
When will full Level 4 freedom occur?
Predictions vary widely, but is completely possible because of difficult thorny steps, it may not be until the very rough neighborhood of 2040s/2050s/2060s/2070s before we finally solve ALL THE ABOVE BULLETS to drive your children in the middle of a snowstorm, for 100% complete freedom on all Canada roads -- i.e. wide-open public roads (rather than private campuses or special lanes) -- and the old manual-drive cars on the roads fall apart and being retired -- before we see GTHA roads full of full Level 4 freedom self-driving cars. It is really a BIG step, because of all the above.
Looking forward to it! Would like to sleep in the back of a car while going to Ottawa at night, whenever the full Toronto-Ottawa highspeed trains are booked solid during holidays.
