My company does drones and they work quite well. However, they require a lot of sensing hardware and therefore costs are high and while large production volumes would help, there are some fundamental costs that simply won’t disappear. I suspect a subscription model will be needed initially simply because I expect the costs to properly equip safely automated cars will prove to be much higher than the cost to equip a car to the current “autopilot” level. Perhaps clever innovation will save us the money, time will tell.

But regardless, sharing will make more sense as the technology simply lends itself to it. Turo might sound pretty good when the accident risk is essentially gone and the renter pick up and drop off is automatic.

As mentioned, separate roads (autopilot only) will eventually enable us to realize a lot more automation benefits. For instance we could greatly increase speed limits as the cars will figure that out with an appropriate (perhaps legally mandated) margin of safety. However, that will be when we enthusiasts start to get into trouble. I don’t see anyone riding horses downtown these days.

On the upside, horse races are absolutely still a thing. So the moral of the story is we all need to get into racing.

I’m not saying the sky is falling, but if there is a very strong profit motive and business case to shift how cars are “sold” and “used”, its all going to happen much more quickly than most of us think.

I LOVE driving as do most of us in this subforum, heck we drive Porsche GT cars. But, most of the driving public could give a crap about the “art” of driving and the man/machine interface. I could even buy into a drone car for my work commute as traffic sucks in DFW nowadays. But evenings/weekends/track days, I want to drive big time.

Since a majority of people either lease their cards or have perpetual car payments, they are already in a subscription service.