My understanding is that in a reasonably stable state, an autonomous car would run on battery, charge itself and cost 40k. If a car has a life time of 5 years and electricity costs 4k/yr + 2k maintenance (lower for electric cars), we are looking at operational cost of 14k/yr per vehicle.

Right now an Uber driver who is probably online 60 hours a week, needs to support a car priced around 25k (amortized over 5 years), gas (which is more expensive than electricity), maintenance and 50k-70k/yr driver income. Assuming lower end we are looking at 5k car + 10k fuel + 5k maintenance + 50k driver income. So cost to support a driving car is 70k/yr for lower hours of operation.

So we are looking at a 5x cost and lesser hours of operation with human driving vs autonomous driving.

These are off the napkin numbers so please don't take them literally. It is meant to highlight that driver income is the biggest factor.

Whoever has self driving tech, they can start undercutting Uber with the most profitable markets (NYC, SF, Boston, LA etc) and expand from there.

I feel that we are at least 5-8 years away from main stream self driving. But I could be wrong.