[malozite]

The situation with the 5 hour drive which would be a 45 minute flight + 4-5 hours of flight overhead is completely orthogonal to whether or not the car is self-driving.

If you like to drive, you are fine with or without autonomous cars. If you don't like to sit in a car for 5 hours, you are SOL in both cases. Only if you hate driving, but do enjoy sitting in a car not driving do self-driving cars add value.

[futevolei]

It’s not orthogonal. Self driving 6 hours makes the drive a net positive. It goes from unpleasant/brutal to a net positive where you can sit in the car and do other stuff.