[chrisbuc]

At which point you might not care if its _your_ car. Any passing empty self drive car will do. Once you've got out of it, it can go and do other things.

Reduced need to actually own a car, and fewer cars on the road (or parked) as empty car capacity can be fully utilised. Of course the lifespan of an individual vehicle will be reduced.

[Someone]

Fully utilized is highly unlikely. Certainly, if most people travel to work around 7-9 and from work around 16-18, and work and home locations aren’t uniformly distributed, you would end up with cars at office locations that have to go back to pick up people at home (assuming there’s time for a single car to do a double commute)

Cars mostly spend their time in parking lots, but that also mostly happens at the same times and in the same locations.

Also, I fear people will still care it is _their_ car. If not, what will replace it as a status symbol? Being able to summon a nicer ride might, but if we’re going to stratify self-driving cars, utilization will go down further.