Re: Not surprised at all.
>Sorry Bob, but that just doesn't work for a lot of people. Like, anyone with children, or people like myself, who have dogs.
I expect these new rental cars will simply pick up the same T&Cs as in current usage. Which will introduce several limitations. I've not found a UK car rental company that doesn't prohibit dogs due to valeting problems. You will also find that no rental car has a towbar or roof rack due to insurance liabilities; if you need either of these (eg. to take a couple bikes with you) then you need to rent a van...
[Aside: interesting how quickly we've accepted that no smoking in shared vehicles is a given - it's been years since I've seen a recently built car with ash trays.]
As to interior condition, I suspect like you that there will be some surcharge if the vehicle can't be immediately sent to the next client. However, the one good thing [slight sarcasm here], is that there will be thousands of people, previously employed as taxi drivers who will be able to man valeting services on many street corners...
> There's a freedom angle, and not owning your own slice of freedom is going to be a hard sell.
This is the big challenge we are going to have to face up to in the coming years. TPTB (ie. government & police) seem to believe that self-driving cars will mean that the increasing numbers of older drivers can be encouraged to switch vehicles rather than be compelled to surrender their license and change their way of life. From conversations with TPTB, I suspect their expectations are as usual over-optimistic of when the technology will be "good enough"; so I expect Bob Dole (tm) to be partialy right, just that part of the change will be decades of transport problems and - by modern standards - high levels of accidents, congestion etc. plus unforeseen (well couldn't be bothered to do the research) social problems.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
