The world doesn't work in idealized ways. Yes, perhaps ideally self-driving cars would need to be nearly perfect in order to win wide public acceptance. At the same time there was an article on the front page today investigating literal gulag labor camps in the USA, and I doubt those are popular or going away any time soon. Once this is working technology that can turn a profit, it will depend on who stands to gain, how deep their pockets are, who gets bribed, which talking points get pushed, and which votes get bought. Whether the public ends up particularly happy about the outcome is at best, secondary, and at worst, irrelevant. Don't think I've run into too many people happy about our healthcare system, yet that remains stubbornly broken. No one I've met really wanted to lose our lower-middle class to China, yet there it went.