I have some theories. The first part is the general assumption that the endgame of self-driving cars is robotaxis. I don't personally buy this--most people who

I have some theories. The first part is the general assumption that the endgame of self-driving cars is robotaxis. I don't personally buy this--most people who own their own cars today clearly prefer to own their own cars over relying on taxi services or public transit--but this is dominant assumption you see in newspaper articles and business planning. And I suspect it's mostly driven by greed for recurring service revenue over one-time sales revenue. And the second part is the aspersions to Uber (as a stand-in for all the similar services): renting your own car out as a robotaxi is a lot like being an Uber, except for being the driver part. Of course, Uber itself is basically a losing model that doesn't really compensate enough to cover the wear-and-tear on your car from the extra mileage acting as a taxi, so it's not entirely the best model to be emulating. But how could a $10 billion company possibly be wrong?