>And, of course, there's no guarantee that any savings in operation would be passed on to the consumer (see electronic publishing).
In this case it's likely that they would be. Book publishing is a rather unique case in that it's a million natural monopolies; if you want to read The Hunger Games, you're not going to be satisfied with a close substitute. Taxi services are fairly commoditized- excluding medallions, pretty much any automated taxi to show up at your door and bring you where you need to go is going to be acceptable. Thus you've got a much higher elasticity of demand thanks to this substitutability, so consumers capture more of the surplus. There's a low barrier to entry, so consumers can and will just switch to any cheaper option that comes along.
Maybe so, but I'm struggling to imagine a scenario where that comes true. As we generally think of them now, they're for the suburban commuter to replace their current car. As such, they can't be limited much, lest only a tiny elite be able to purchase them- probably not tenable politically. Furthermore, politicians don't seem farsighted enough to even set quotas if they wanted to; any limits set would likely be at something resembling estimated real-world demand, and since we're talking about a shift that would radically reduce the total number of cars in service, politicians would likely overestimate the need.
Plus, driverless cars can't form taxi associations with reasonably large voter blocs.
Yeah, I don't mean driverless cars as personal property would be limited. Rather driverless cars as a service will likely be regulated much like taxis are now. Corporations owning the cars and transporting people for money, that will be regulated and restricted.
In this case it's likely that they would be. Book publishing is a rather unique case in that it's a million natural monopolies; if you want to read The Hunger Games, you're not going to be satisfied with a close substitute. Taxi services are fairly commoditized- excluding medallions, pretty much any automated taxi to show up at your door and bring you where you need to go is going to be acceptable. Thus you've got a much higher elasticity of demand thanks to this substitutability, so consumers capture more of the surplus. There's a low barrier to entry, so consumers can and will just switch to any cheaper option that comes along.