You'd have enormous numbers of cars on the road during rush hours, then a fraction of that number during alternate hours. That's where the need for parking becomes a legitimate question. Other questions that spring to mind:
What about need for occasional transport of material, stuff that would either over-stuff a sedan, or require a pickup truck? Need to buy an 8-foot 2x4 from Home Depot? Call Uber!
What about unscheduled needs to make an additional stop? How would that impact the tight scheduling to make this system function? Need a gallon of milk? Better have that scheduled early!
What about an unscheduled change of course that is dictated by the passenger? Will the system allow for that kind of deviation? How would that impact the scheduling system? Want to drive by the high school to see if the sprinklers are working on the football field? That will require a one-day notice with your Uber service.
What happens when a car breaks down? How is it cleared from the roadway? How quickly does that happen? How is the passenger re-scheduled? Is there a long delay? Uber tire loses 4 psi of pressure? Safety system shuts down vehicle. Passenger waits additional 90 minutes to get to work so that a back-up vehicle can finish the route, thereby avoiding the extreme danger of traveling on under-inflated tires.
As for paying for this, I assume it would ultimately become a function of the state and/or federal government. Passengers would be assessed a per mile fee. We would be promised it would be a net cost savings, but it wouldn't. It would cost more, and there would be no ownership of anything--no opportunity to recoup costs.
#georgeorwell
Are these really the issues you're raising as insurmountable?
In order:
1. Again, you don't need to park cars that aren't in use. Why can't they just stay on the roads? And again, the cars that do need to be stored create no issue. Because there are exponentially fewer of them to store than there are currently. I mean, we have garages now. And parking lots. You realize that, right? That's where you put them. The better question is what do you do with all of the unneeded parking lots and garages?
2. To solve the need for occasional transport of materials you. . .order a vehicle large enough to transport said materials. I, ummm, do that already. I'm honestly sort of stumped by the question. Do you really think that Google, Uber, Apple, Tesla, Ford, BMW, Audi and everybody else dumping billions of dollars into this haven't thought about transporting goods? Or to put it another way, do you not think that revenue from the shipping industry is something they're eying with this technology?
3. To solve the need for an additional stop you. . .tell the car you need to make an additional stop. Hit the "additional stop" button, input the address. Now all you need to worry about is whether or not your car can hold all of that milk. (see #2 for answer)
4. How much scheduling notice do you give Uber now? 1 day? Or none at all? What's different about the driverless arrangement. Do you think that Uber/Google/Lyft/Tesla aren't going to be able to adequately predict the demand in the market? Why?
5. Nothing you're raising about cars breaking down is any different than the current system we have in place when a car breaks down. All of the questions you're asking are just as relevant to manually operated vehicles as they are to autonomous ones. Your car breaking down sucks and causes issues for you, regardless of who is driving it.
6. Good point about the cost. Anytime you can proactively blame the government for price gouging a system being fully developed by private companies, and you clearly lack even a rudimentary knowledge of said system, you gotta do it, right?