You extrapolating that future markets will work exactly like the past, because "its a car".
But its doubtful it will. The reason why the auto industry evolved the way it did (driver gets sued), is because 90+% of the time it is operator error.
Look at another example. Kraft distributes 10M packages of poisoned cheese, what happens: (a) All the local grocery stores get sued? or (b) Does Kraft get sued?
Obviously "B" would be the case, since the local grocery stores would say: "We had no way to test the cheese for poison, it was pre-packaged from Kraft"
This is very similar to what would happen in a 100% autonomous vehicle situation. The owner doesn't have access nor the capability to judge the engineering / code.
>Toyota recalled thousands of trucks about 3 months
Not the same. Toyota doing a recall to replace a $200 part doesn't come close to the potential liability that a autonomous manufacturer that had thousands of accidents...each potentially costing millions each.
>Even if insurance were the issue, it's fairly easy to solve; in the contract you sign to use an automated vehicle, you'd assume liability.
Yes, and the trucking companies will just say: No
Their insurance rates would skyrocket so high, that it would be cheaper to just continue to use human drivers.