Autonomous vehicles won't be superior to high speed rail due to much worse space efficiency and induced demand putting a strain on road infrastructure. Even if

Autonomous vehicles won't be superior to high speed rail due to much worse space efficiency and induced demand putting a strain on road infrastructure. Even if autonomous cars are smaller than the ones we have now, they still take up too much space. Autonomous cars will expand the amount of drivers as one no longer needs a license, and the amount of cars will increase. This new demand will cause increased road congestion unless an expensive expansion of the road network takes place, an we know from induced demand that road expansion doesn't fix congestion in the long term anyway. Automobile oriented infrastructure doesn't scale whether the cars are autonomous or not, and it's a bad idea to base the entire transportation system around them.