Re: Even in the extremely unlikely event that fully autonomous vehicles ever become viable
"But this will give an inferior service to ownership, at least in some ways, and so will have to be cheaper. Which means utilisation will have to be high, in order to cover costs"
Which is trivial when the cost of a 20 km taxi ride is on the order of $40, and a 4 km transit ride is a bit over $3.
The first, and in many ways the best fitting, use case will be replacing taxicabs, followed by replacing buses and streetcars. After that will come supplementing inter-city transit for low volume or off hour service.
All of these involve high use rates (good for amortizing fixed expenses) and benefit from removing the major operating cost (the driver) while avoiding limitations such as driver hour regulations.
And a door to door replacement for transit will benefit lots of people who may not be able to use regular transit or afford lots of money to support state imposed taxi monopolies.
