[galdosdi]

1) Public transport works today. True self driving is an unknown amount of time away, and IMHO it is a foolish mistake to assume it is definitely very soon or definitely very long before it works. It could be a year away or decades.

2) Even with self driving, there would be some efficiency gains from a bus, especially in places dense enough that there just isn't space for a car per person, like Manhattan. It would take adding something like 50 lanes of highway across the Hudson River to replace the capacity that trains currently provide for people to enter Manhattan from the mainland, IIRC. Neither electricity nor self driving in any way reduce the amount of space a car takes up. In fact self driving increases traffic by making it easier to go for a drive -- perhaps even send a car out for a 0 passenger cargo pickup trip.

Public transit is here to stay.

[oogabooga13]

I can agree with your general time scales on self driving. Just today in SF I watched firsthand a "Cruise" self driving car completely wig out when faced with a double parked car (pointed in the same direction as the "Cruise") and oncoming traffic on the opposite side of the street.

When it decided to make its manuever (on coming traffic briefly stopped to allow the car to drive around the double parked vehicle) the car made erratic micro turns and short hard braking action (pushing the nose of the car down) once it entered the (stopped) on coming traffic lane. The occupants were definitely thrashed around a bit.

The attempt was not pretty and definitely not even close to human level proficeny.

A typical manuever one has to make these days in the Bay with street parking eliminated in many busy restaurant / cafe corridors.