content: Volvo has already answered that question. They have stated they will take full responsibility for any accident caused by one of their self driving vehicles. That will likely become the norm for all companies as such since for self-driving only vehicles that means you get full coverage insurance for free. Add in the fact they will likely be electric and it's also means no gas. That's just a huge chunk of upkeep costs - gone. The reason everybody is making self driving vehicles is because there's extremely good reason to expect self driving vehicles to entirely replace manually driven vehicles. When people at rush hour peek over and see the guy in a self driving vehicle propped back taking a nap on the way into work, as they life tilt away in stop n go traffic, that's a new convert to self driving vehicles. Getting more people in them will also help alleviate traffic, pollution and accidents which are still one of the leading causes of death for young Americans which means we'll likely see a political push to standardize them - especially in cities. And the entire commercial transportation industry is going to be basically dead as far as human labor goes. This is going to open up some huge opportunities for the first company to develop refined, robust, and adaptable self driving tech.