Isn't the idea that the cost of the car would go down over time with economies of scale while providing a safer means of transport? Not saying that's the current reality, but that's the goal isn't it?
There are certainly exceptions, often well publicized by the companies, of drivers who figure out how to exploit the algorithms to make decent money. But when too many figure this out, the companies adjust the algorithms to contain costs, leading right back to the above.
Cars are safer than they've ever been; looking at some statistics, we have halved the fatality rates since 1980. So I'm not exactly sure claiming "it's safer" is really much of a selling point.
GP is correct that the money has never really made sense, other than in the context of logistics (automating semi trucks maybe?). Given that even the safest of transport modes (say, the metro in London or Paris) still needs to have a conductor (for potential emergencies), it's hard to see the fully driverless dream ever materializing.
Not if you are outside the car. Pedestrian and cyclist fatalities have increased steadily in the US over the past ten years [0] due to ever increasing car sizes and speeds [1].
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/fatal/trends.html
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/pedestrian_safety/i...
Cars are inherently unsafe but we refuse to disengage from this failed model despite the solutions (ie. public transit) being right there for decades and decades.
Self driving public transport in contrast is a solved problem. Vancouver's driverless Skytrain has been serving customers since the early 1980s (as you say, requiring a driver only in the rare exception of some emergency or technical malfunction).
London's system is particularly old and deep, and lacks space for emergency walkways.
Sure, in the sense that's the idea behind lots of things. But there is an awful lot of handwaving about how to concretely get there.
The overall goal of using self-driving technology to reduce human deaths and injuries is clearly admirable. What's less clear is a) if it is technologically achievable and b) if any of the current efforts are scaled appropriately to get there over a decade or two.
The early self-driving hype was pretty depressing to behold. It was obviously an Apollo sized or bigger effort, and people were actually getting traction with the laughable idea that we'd "get there" in 2-3 years with a few 10k of engineers (or less, I'm estimating conservatively).
Of the current efforts, the only that I have heard very positive things about is Waymo.