Comment by kitsunesoba

I think the big difference is convenience. Car sharing as it exists requires prior planning/coordination, you can’t just grab one on a whim. That’s enough friction that a lot of people would prefer to own a car instead, especially when you consider that a huge part of the appeal of a car is agency and freedom — no need to operate on anybody else’s time tables or predefined stops, just step out and go wherever you please. The closest we have to autonomous hailing is Uber/Lyft, but that becomes prohibitively expensive, not to mention there’s places Uber drivers won’t want to pick you up from or take you to.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of public transportation )lived in Japan for a while and loved the trains) and think it should be greatly expanded, but driving in the US isn’t going away any time soon and so alongside efforts to improve public transportation, efforts should also go into autonomous driving to try to take even more cars off the road. Ideally the bulk of commuters and errandrunners would be using rail, with the second largest group using autonomous car sharing, and the last and by far smallest group still owning their cars.