There are real technical challenges to making this work, not that it doesn't magically solve all things - it can't solve anything yet. The long tail still appears quite long.
I mean, he founded Blue Origin in 2000 and it finally emerged from its self-imposed silence in 2015.
Using EfficientNet instead of ResNet, depth detection algorithms, better object classifiers are available than just a few years ago.
I believe that there's less than 5 years between the first company achieving self driving and many other companies.
Compared to 2012, it now takes 44 times less compute to train a neural network to the level of AlexNet.
How that affect self-driven car is still to be determine, but progress is very real
However this gain also directly translates to a real-world result improvement: You can now train a lot more at the same cost.
I could see a big company or conglomerate of companies being willing to take over part or all of certain parts of road development and maintenance as long as they can have one or more dedicated autonomous lanes.
I imagine that there will be a lot of room for creative solutions over the next 10 years.
You just described my best guess of the future (at least of the US).
In fact, you might be able to say that we are already moving that direction given how much influence large corporations and industries have over our government.
Note that I am not happy about my prediction, but my eyes are open to what is happening around me.
Which part is doubtful?
I didn’t suggest that taxes would go away.
I suggested that tax receipts (the amount received by government) will decrease due to reduced economic activity during the pandemic. This is a fact (it has already happened).
This would give the tech companies an opportunity to solve some governmental budget shortfalls by relieving some of the burden in exchange for some access rights.