Unfortunately there are a few assumptions being made here that don't really jive with car usage in practice. 96% usage? People's schedules aren't that flexible, my spouse and I commute at the same time to different places, and a large chunk of the people in my apartment do as well. This is known as rush hour.
Not to mention that driving places, without actually driving people places (ie, back home to drive the wife) effectively doubles the mileage, and thus my gas (or the energy source du jour's) consumption.
edit: Also, to build on the above comment, the benefit of having a car is having the freedom to use it when you want, it's always there. Driverless cars always in motion are basically public transit. Just take the bus/taxi/subway already.
>Driverless cars always in motion are basically public transit
Minus the cost of the driver.
The point of ubiquitous driverless cars, is that one could get to you so quickly that for all intents and purposes it would always be there.
Also they don't always have to be in motion. Just give people a discount on service if they let cars park in their driveways while waiting for instructions.
It is a tragic failure of imagination to believe that a driverless car will offer the same opportunities as a bus or subway. Yes, I'm sure there will be a public transit version of them. Yes, I'm sure that you'll occassionally have to reject one because there's a pool of vomit it in it. But, no, it'll be nothing like walking down the street for a bus, or, for a young woman, hailing a taxi driven by a stranger, at night.
Assuming usage does not go from 4% to 96% and he is only partially right, will there still be no interesting societal transformations along his outline due to an increase to, say, 50%?
