How will this resolve if renting such a car is definitely possible in your budget, yet too expensive for you to choose on a regular basis? I ask because Waymo seems to currently be in this phase. People can afford to try it, but most people will stick with cheaper options for now.

@CommanderZander Needs to be cheap enough that it's worth the few hours of time it saves me.

if a self driving taxi service becomes popular and you use it as a main form of transportation but don’t own a self driving car, how does this question resolve?

@TomCohen Good question. That'll count if it's cheap enough to be better than non-self-driving alternatives.

@IsaacKing Hmm, now I'm curious about the economics of long-distance trips by self-driving taxi.

Most taxi drivers don't want to take long-distance trips because they will need to get back home! A self-driving car might not care, as long as it knows it can get business in the new destination. So I imagine long-distance trips between large markets (SF - LA - NYC, Sydney-Melbourne etc.) will be cheaper than long-distance trips to less frequented destinations -- but the price factor will be at worst 2:1 (in the worst case you just pay the car to go back where it came from).

@Boklam I guess another plausible option is a partly-self-driving rental: It can drive along highways and park itself at a stop just off the highway (rest stop? purpose-built highway-side taxi stand?); you meet it there and pick it up.

Again, the unit question: What kind of dollars?

I would never suggest that there's only one kind of dollar used by sane people!

@Boklam USD. That's not part of the resolution criteria, that's just helping people know what kinds of cars I'm likely to purchase.