Automated cars can in principle make subtle, shockwave-damping decisions in high density flow, zip together neatly at on ramps and make space for lane crossers at off ramps. And bonus, they can also in principle be doing useful things rather than occupying parking lots.
I expect a slow phase change to car-as-public-transport that never stops rolling when it isn't in maintenance.
How is my use case a "wrong problem"? I'm providing a legitimate application of this limited technology and you're dismissing it with a distracting, unfounded argument.
I don't know how to solve the problem of having 2-4 rush hours. I do know how to solve the problem of having to manually manage my speed in traffic. It may be "the wrong problem" but it's a problem I face routinely, and a problem I'm delighted to solve for myself.
Get your job to let you work from the car on the way into the office for whatever face time you need, and you're on your way to cutting down the total time devoted to your job/commute.
But we are in a community currently in recoil from remote workers. On HN in the past week I have seen at least half a dozen front page articles about how remote doesn't work or how to do work life balance when remote. If people just cannot function without having their molecules in physical proximity to their bosses molecules you still get stuck with the dumb commutes.
Currently, most offices only need face time ~10-4 most days, but if your driving your out of touch with coworkers in normal business hours which is a hard sell. So often people only get to miss one of those segments either the show up ~10 most days or leave by 4pm most days but not both. Or, they might miss 1-3 days a week depending on meetings etc.
Now, suppose your self driving car let's you work while in the car. So, your still in the office from ~10-4 and get daily face time, but your only working 8-6. From a work life balance that's effectively zero commute time vs a killer 2h each way, with the added benefit that you get to avoid some of the peak traffic times.
The upside is it makes vary long commutes viable, the downside is it's it's vary energy expensive but with electric cars that's far less of an issue.
No to mention things like effective valet parking everywhere.
How much does a driver cost in the US? For well paid tech workers I'm wondering if it would be worth it to have a driver rather than spending X hours driving themselves.
You're seeing the recoil because it's expanding to place we haven't seen before. The outsourcing and remote trends gained traction in 2002, and despite a lot of failures and false starts, it's growing and reaching places and industries it hasn't been to before, hence the backlash by people and teams that aren't competent with them.