You can't have self-ownership. It's not remotely possible due to the safety considerations. Self driving cars need to have more oversight than FAA/aircraft.
Even with self driving vehicles, America will still have terrible traffic. If anything, self driving vehicles will make things even worse, instead of America finally fixing its broken/non-existent mass transit system.
I wrote about this a while back. Basically even if you only had self-driving vehicles on an interstate, all of them filled to 4 people each, travelling at 120km, you still couldn't even get to the fraction of the capacity of a single rail line running at 5 minute intervals:
If you can't own (or lease, but that's just a financing variant) a self-driving car, the concept is going to be basically a non-starter. People who already take taxis/Uber/Lyft/etc. will appreciate a 50% cut or so in rates but anyone else who already drives a car daily will just pass for most of the same reasons they own a car today.
Do not agree. Habits will change as it will be cheap. My kids already are very, very comfortable using Uber where me and my wife are like let's take our car.
Are your kids paying for Uber out of their own pocket? If not, then their opinion about the financial side is moot. My kids love to be chaeuffered about by me.
It would be far cheaper for me to take Uber to work every single day than pay for my car + fuel + maintenance + insurance. Like....half of what I pay a month if not more. Yet having the car for my own personal use whenever I want is still worth the premium IMHO.
Even with self driving vehicles, America will still have terrible traffic. If anything, self driving vehicles will make things even worse, instead of America finally fixing its broken/non-existent mass transit system.
I wrote about this a while back. Basically even if you only had self-driving vehicles on an interstate, all of them filled to 4 people each, travelling at 120km, you still couldn't even get to the fraction of the capacity of a single rail line running at 5 minute intervals:
http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-sol...