VW has an interesting prior track record with economics, truth around numbers and diesel emissions in particular.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-09/vw-charge...
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15339250/everything-you-n...
Based on that history I'm not convinced that $8.50 per hour is even remotely reasonable and they already know it. Autonomous driving is a lot cheaper.
This doesn't mean that people won't pay it. Plenty will. But its more expensive than it should be.