Are the people driving really that much more expensive than the computers, tooling and infrastructure for automated cars? How do the maintenance costs compare? There's a lot more to it than just the drivers.
Initial investment is incredible. Just look at how much money and time has already been spent on trying to implement self-driving capabilities and we aren't close yet.
But once the technology is developed and available the cost will probably be pretty low. A couple of sensors and processing. I feel like maintenance cost will likely be smaller since a self driving car in theory at least can detect any issue much quicker then a human.
This is all speculation of course but human drivers are very expensive. Quick googling says about 20k to 45k per year for a truck driver. Even if initial investment in self driving technology costs 50k per unit more it's still incredibly advantageous to do so.
