however, I am very skeptical it will happen to any large extent in my lifetime (however, I am not young). Too many variables to account for right now including an aging infrastructure and weather. What happens if it snows and the car can't see the lines? GPS is not that accurate, at least for civilian use, right now.

The closest thing there is to autonomous driving is air travel, which they have been doing for decades, and most of the time they have to override it manually during the flight due to some unforeseen circumstance, such as weather. I think we are further off from it than we think, or hope.