Re: Insurance
you also keep a load of crap in it: tools, child seats, portable DVD players for long journeys, books, blinds stuck on the windows, phone chargers, emergency biscuits....
Damn.... I forgot to restock my biscuit stash :(
I also think the idea that it'll be much cheaper than a taxi is naive. Yes, taxi drivers are an expensive component of a taxi, but taking them away doesn't automatically save us (the customer) the cost.
People are already (even if begrudgingly) paying those prices, so why would a company charge much less when the difference is potentially profit?
Even if you assume a 'nice' company, autonomous cars aren't going to be cheap for quite some time, so you'll be paying extra to offset the company's investment. Prices will come down over time, but I suspect we're quite a long way off it being substantially cheaper than a taxi.
Also, for those of us not living in a major urban centre, there's another issue - the time it takes to get a car to you. If I want to shoot out to Tesco in a hurry, I walk out to my car, and off I go. Waiting 5-10 mins for a self-driving car to turn up somewhat undermines the "shite... I forgot %s, just shooting out" element. Same goes for slightly more urgent things as well.
What I'm getting at, is driving gives a lot of people independence. A move to commercially owned self-driving 'hire' cars removes that independence, something I suspect a lot of people would likely fight against (metaphorically, I'm not predicting the start of Car Wars).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
