Self-driving cars coming in years, not decades

Major factor: Regulation will determine when self-driving cars will become widespread. Pictured is Schmidt (L) with Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Eric Schmidt of Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., responds to a question about how close we are to autonomous cars becoming a day-to-day reality."It's very hard to know," said Alphabet's Eric Schmidt, asked how close self-driving cars are to reality at a shareholder meeting on June 8, 2016.

"The consensus I think within the company is that it's some years, not decades," he continued, reported The Verge.