I think it's far less about control and more about bulletproofing the technology. If the self-driver becomes better than the best human drivers, there's limite

I think it's far less about control and more about bulletproofing the technology. If the self-driver becomes better than the best human drivers, there's limited gains in real safety if a 15-year-old with his learner's permit/drunkard/suicidal/homicidal/distracted person can still grab the wheel and steer it into a wall manually. We may find that there are some opportunities that only become feasible if we remove the human factor. I could see a road network with much higher speeds for advanced self-driving vehicles, especially if you rely on the vehicles being able to communicate directly with each other and signaling mechanisms to keep traffic more orderly than a typical freeway. There may also be some interesting business angles in it-- I fully expect that the feature after "we removed the steering wheel" is "we put a lie-flat bed, workstation or minibar where it lived."