Self-driving cars will definitely happen. It won't happen next year, but it will absolutely happen. That's the way humans are. If they can do something and make some money, they will do it.
For example, Uber’s valuation was based on the idea that self-driving cabs would be cheaper than paying a human driver. It would be very easy to imagine that if the vehicle costs $100k it’s cheaper to pay a driver minimum wage instead. This is especially worth thinking about in light of the climate crisis: single-passenger vehicles have much higher emissions than almost anything else, even for EVs, and if the users had to pay the accurate cost the break-even point would be even further away than it is now.