Once you take that part out of the equation, the arguments, one by one, become a lot weaker, if not collapsing entirely:
- Electric cars being impractical: when you're managing an automated fleet, taking them off the grid to be fueled electrically is actually more practical, since it's easier to deploy recharging nodes without manual intervention than it is to transfer liquid. Also, longer on-base recharging times (which aren't necessarily a given) can be combined with any routine maintenance which may need to be done (including scanning the cabin for lost items / cleaning it).
- Ownership costs: this one falls apart almost completely. There is the looming problem that this would give massive corporations even more leverage than they already have, but the solutions there are political in nature, calling for an approach similar to the existing approach to state-run mass transit (akin to how Seattle runs the Pronto bike service).
- No big increase in productivity: "One of the many benefits is smaller than claimed" is hardly an argument against autonomous vehicles - not to mention that that study only looks at the immediate behaviors of current self-driving-car passengers. It's quite likely that, after even just a few months of self-driving fleets being normalized, we'd see workflows start to adapt, with more voice-driven productivity adopted (to avoid motion sickness), possibly combined with translucent displays in the vehicles themselves.
- People like driving themselves: I'm not sure I buy this as a real obstacle for the majority of the population. People liked feeding horses, chatting with travel agents, and browsing bookstores, too- it wasn't enough to keep most people from abandoning them once a significantly more convenient alternative came along. (And if you're only making the decision per-ride, instead of for an up-front bulk purchase like a self-driven car, this decision becomes a lot easier.)