Exhibit A/B - Regulation is far more lax when you have two people in a vehicle. So if you are building a prototype AV network, you build small ones, and only get to the bigger vehicles later when the economies of scale pencil out.

Because when you transport a bunch of people, regulation changes significantly, and drives prices into the sky. There are also practical concerns... it takes less metal, ABS, wiring, and physical space to build a 2-seater than a 20-seater.

Today, there are hundreds of thousands of buses sold every single year (many sold by my parent company DTNA, under the name Thomas-Built Buses) by a variety of manufacturers, and the prices are stable. There is rich competition in the market, and prices for these vehicles are established. (True for municipal buses, school buses, and even tour buses.)

Finally, large vehicles can only drive on specific roads, and through specific intersections. There are physical and regulatory barriers to the bus getting close to most houses where people live. But an autonomous SmartCar can even drive down my private street; legally, and practically. The bus drops people off 5 blocks away. And I don't know about you, but I'm not walking 5 blocks with bags of groceries, to ride in an overheated vehicle with non-opening windows, to sit next to insane/smelly/wonderful/tired/happy/unhappy people.

Exhibit C - Pick up at 6:30 at my house, and take me 10.6 miles to work. Pick me up at work at 3:45 and take me back home.

I'd pay $30/day for that.

Does it pencil out, financially speaking? Maybe? Car payment, insurance, depreciation, APR, tires, oil changes, windshield wipers, door dings, bumper scrapes, car wash/wax/detail once a month, etc.

Honestly, I don't care. If I do not have to deal with the assholes on the road every day, then I am HAPPY to pay $30/day for that service.

And in the summer I'll ride my motorcycle, and will have FEWER shitheads driving badly to worry about. In fact, I'll pay $15/month for the little broadcasting device that reaches out to the AVs around me to alert them to my presence, so they are SURE to see me with their LiDAR, and let me in when I need to change lanes, and not freakout when I share a lane with them at the traffic light.

And ya know what? I get a credit of $15/mo on my AV membership fees because I now have a parking place in front of my house that I am not using, so I let AVs stage themselves there overnight.

But all this is irrelevant, in the end.

The simple fact is that the technology is already here, just not widely dispersed. There are oodles of ways to make money in AV services, and - in the big picture - fewer people die.

By the time I am 70 (20 years), we will laugh about how we used to own utility vehicles. The only vehicles people will own will be motorcycles, RVs, and sports cars, because they WANT a toy to play with.

Will AVs be prominent in rural areas? No. They are not work vehicles. They are people-movers. People don't move in rural areas, STUFF moves. That's why they have tractors and trucks and gators... to move STUFF.

But the 600,000 people "commuting" into a city at 8:AM and out at 5:PM? The only ones driving will be the ones driving for fun.