It’s more than 70% discount. This has so many implications everywhere - cost of living comes down. Things that were previously too costly to achieve will be profitable now.
The cost of building 100 Teslas for transporting the people we'd be able to stick into one bus is significantly higher than what we ever could save by not having a driver - and that's _before_ looking at the extra infrastructure cost we'll have: The 100 Teslas use way more space than a bus or a streetcar (capacity: 200-400), so needs more and wider roads, and will contribute to congestion, instead of easing it.
Self driving trams are already being tested - and are way easier to deal with than self driving cars, especially when you isolate them from the road to some extend. It won't change much in terms of personnel cost - countries which had been reducing conductors in trains ended up replacing them with security, so I'd expect we'll still have paid people in buses and trams, they'll just have a different job description now.
Cars exist at the moment and they serve a purpose. Public transport exists and serves a purpose too.
Self driving taxis and self driving cars will reduce the cost that people paid when they previously used cars. It might also make it more sensible to choose the convenience of a car instead of a tram or bus which may not take you to your exact location.
I agree that air travel is on a different scale but the similarities are there. The promise of a faster and cheaper means of transport but with possible safety concerns - both for self driving cars as well as air travel.
For taxi service it indeed could make limited sense - but that alone is not a big enough market to justify the development cost. From over here in Europe it looks like US tech companies are trying to compensate for that by making the market bigger through pushing taxi rides as replacement for bus or other mass transport rides - which is a horrible idea. I'm aware that the US has a bit more messed up public transport in general as we do over here (and taxi is considered part of public transport) - but even there, the right thing would be fixing mass transport, not introducing mass single person transport in cars.
In many countries over here taxi rates set by the state for individual regions to make it a reliable part of public transport. They're taking into account the cost of running the car, and other factors - the goal is to keep it affordable during peak times, while still being profitable for companies outside of those. Quite a few people rely on taxi service for things like going to the doctor or even just to the shop. In those cases a driver is not just a cost factor, but also a vital component of the provided service by providing assistance.
If we ever get fully automated taxis over here I'd expect them to be charged at the same taxi rates - otherwise it'd incentivize taxi companies to only run the cheapest option, which might cut off some person groups from the service, which - again - is public transport, and should not be discriminatory.
For one single issue, look at the society we live in; who is going to clean the car when the inevitable happens? How will that even work? Or do you think people will happily jump in a dirty car?
So, while you do not pay the driver (who makes little anyway), there will be new costs.
I am discounting your equation of self driving cars to the aviation industry.
Other people detest public transit.
You think Robotaxis are a solution to either of these?
