What this seems to ignore for me is the car-as-status / car-as-identity case. Speaking personally when I had to trade from a rather nice executive saloon to an MPV / minivan, much as I knew it was sensible I hated it because of the self-image connotations. Which is possibly why I've now got a 350Z ;-)
Why does anyone buy a BMW or a Mercedes when a Ford is substantially cheaper for the same space and performance? Image. That's a sector which is always going to buy their own cars rather than leasing one from a pool, because even a shared 'prestige' car (a rather meaningless tag given current BMW sales figures, but I digress...) starts rapidly losing its lustre.
Which then may well mean that we gain a new social stratification - prestige car, own car, driverless pool car. Which could well see older used cars and taxis dropping out of the market, but I doubt it'd have an effect on the general car market on quite the same scale that the writer envisages.
Maybe, but I suspect that the order of adoption might change that. I agree that there will probably always be a segment of personal cars, but that segment will be small and shrinking. Speaking from the other side of the fence: if I still lived in a zipcar city, I'd be rid of my car in a heartbeat. I always considered my lack of car ownership as a positive status symbol.
One sort of person who buys prestige cars* would be the same sort of person to be an early adopter of personally owned driverless cars, after all, being equipped with the latest magical technology is one of the things that confers prestige. Once that has happened, membership of an exclusive car-sharing club might become desirable, offering the opportunity to network and do business on the move. After all, people do buy first-class tickets on trains, despite the massive expense, regardless of the fact that it gets you there at the same time as standard class.
I could also envisage a future in which personal car ownership is often seen in the same light as the ownership of certain models of car (e.g. porsche boxster) are today - i.e. a gauche attempt at a status-symbol by a nouveau riche oik.
*(The other kind, who wouldn't go driverless, are the kind of petrolhead who relishes the man-machine hybrid that they become when they get behind the wheel, but they will eventually be restricted to racetracks)
Make owning your own car a luxury and tax it to hell :)
I hope they do that AFTER the driverless cars gain traction (not before as here in Uruguay where the president thinks that choosing not to use the mediocre public transportation is a "luxury").
Why does anyone buy a BMW or a Mercedes when a Ford is substantially cheaper for the same space and performance? Image. That's a sector which is always going to buy their own cars rather than leasing one from a pool, because even a shared 'prestige' car (a rather meaningless tag given current BMW sales figures, but I digress...) starts rapidly losing its lustre.
Which then may well mean that we gain a new social stratification - prestige car, own car, driverless pool car. Which could well see older used cars and taxis dropping out of the market, but I doubt it'd have an effect on the general car market on quite the same scale that the writer envisages.