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Maybe, but I suspect that the order of adoption might change that. I agree that there will probably always be a segment of personal cars, but that segment will be small and shrinking. Speaking from the other side of the fence: if I still lived in a zipcar city, I'd be rid of my car in a heartbeat. I always considered my lack of car ownership as a positive status symbol.

One sort of person who buys prestige cars* would be the same sort of person to be an early adopter of personally owned driverless cars, after all, being equipped with the latest magical technology is one of the things that confers prestige. Once that has happened, membership of an exclusive car-sharing club might become desirable, offering the opportunity to network and do business on the move. After all, people do buy first-class tickets on trains, despite the massive expense, regardless of the fact that it gets you there at the same time as standard class.

I could also envisage a future in which personal car ownership is often seen in the same light as the ownership of certain models of car (e.g. porsche boxster) are today - i.e. a gauche attempt at a status-symbol by a nouveau riche oik.

*(The other kind, who wouldn't go driverless, are the kind of petrolhead who relishes the man-machine hybrid that they become when they get behind the wheel, but they will eventually be restricted to racetracks)



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