I feel like OP understands this - the questions is that why do any of that when the younger generation is rapidly urbanizing, in which case &quot;order a car on your phone, wait 10 minutes&quot; seems silly compared to &quot;walk out front door, onto train, be at destination even sooner&quot;.<p>The self-driving utopia is primarily a suburban-centric dream, in many European cities (and a small handful of American ones) it&#x27;s likely to be less efficient than what already exists.<p>Around here for example, the subway runs every 2-3 minutes and moves faster than cars - perhaps even self-driving ones. Trips are generally short enough that being able to work&#x2F;surf the internet is a pretty marginal benefit, and the hardware store is so close that it would be nonsensical to use <i>any</i> vehicle to go there. All of the above pre-supposed long travel times and having to take a vehicle for even mundane every tasks - this is untrue for many cities, where cars (self-driving or otherwise) will likely be strictly inferior to the utility offered by walking or mass transit.