Driverless cars are about to arrive. Multiple industry insiders point to 2019 as the year cars gain the full ability to drive themselves.
Elon Musk is of course at the forefront of this, and he has said a Tesla will be able to be fully autonomous by 2019. Tesla plans to display their first test of full autonomy in a test drive from one coast to to the other later this year.
However, they are not alone. Volvo has a pilot program where autonomous vehicles roam the streets of Sweden. Volvo has also said fully autonomy may be enabled by 2019. Given two years to work out the bugs, it's not out of question that full autonomy can arrive in that time frame.
There is some doubt to these claims. Other, less ambitious automakers have their eyes set on as late as 2025. Waymo promised full autonomy by 2017 about 5 years ago, which they have clearly fallen short of. However, given Tesla and Volvo demonstrations of full autonomy (and Waymo vehicles becoming increasingly comfortable in poor weather), it's easy to see how driverless vehicles can arrive in as little as 2 years.
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