We’ve been “close” for 10+ years now. We are not close.
Availability and mass adoption are two very entirely different things.
The time in which people take most commutes by any kind of car is: today... 51% of people commute by car currently. That took 136 years.
'most of the time' for 'most people' is quite a high bar. That's a lot of travel, for about 4 billion people. A few people in Phoenix taking one after a night at the bar doesn't even to begin to scratch that surface.
We're very much still at the 'Carl Benz demoing his horseless carriage' stage of self-driving cars.
However right now they are not ready for that. They don't work in all conditions and we don't have unbiased safety studies.
For example, airbags have proven to drastically increase safety, yet almost a half-century later they’re still not required by many countries across 2 and a half continents. Governments only require safety equipment as far as their population can afford it.
Global automakers have, and still do, make different vehicles for different markets. And further, some only make vehicles for developing economies.
For example, Pakistan required airbags in 2022, and they found necessary to do so because automakers were still making vehicles without them. https://propakistani.pk/2021/12/27/pakistan-to-ban-cars-with...
It's incredible to me how many people honestly believe they can predict the future, when the future is so clearly unpredictable. Even while you acknowledge that everyone's predictions were too optimistic, in the very same sentence you insist on an optimistic prediction.