If you can reduce the cost of a car trip to fuel + maintenance + depreciation, you are providing a very compelling alternative to private car ownership. It will change everything.
nobody owns a car because its cheaper than other forms of transit. and if you want to be cheauferred around by an ai instead of taking a bus, you will pay for it.
People own cars for convenience. In the US public transit is impossible. A self driving service can be as convenient or even more convenient compared to owning a car. (No registration, oil change, insurance, fueling, parking, maintenance chores) I’m a car guy and I see the appeal.
No sarcasm. Why it's impossible to have public transit like every other country in the world but it's possible to pour tons of money on driverless cars development?
The suburban land use pattern doesn't admit good transit because not enough people live close to the stations.
Also, we have bad combinations of when to make things public/private - the US actually has much more public services than many other countries (other places do have privatized mail, transit, etc) but then doesn't fund them. If this was Japan all the good stores would be in the train station and would fund the operations.
