I'm a little confused by this comment. Increasing the market for short journeys seems like the kind of thing autonomous cars are really bad at. I already have a

I'm a little confused by this comment. Increasing the market for short journeys seems like the kind of thing autonomous cars are really bad at. I already have a car in my driveway+, and I can take it 5-10 minutes to a number of stores and friends' houses for trivial marginal cost. I can't imagine taking more short trips because I don't have to drive 10 minutes here and there. There is already a big market for long car journeys, and there is where autonomous cars can really beat the competition. But, as you mentioned, there's a pretty hard upper bound here, as the time cost is significant, even if the monetary cost went to $0. Overnight trips could become more common, but people don't seem to like those very much. I can see automated cars as disrupting the market by being cheaper, since you don't have to own them. I don't see the savings generated from that as going into more car journeys, but maybe that's just my lack of imagination. +I don't actually own a car currently, but that's beside the point. I have in the past.