We (as a society) are fully capable of building single-person cars. It's just the economics of car ownership incentivize having four to five seats and a lot of trunk space just in case you need it, even if you aren't using them 99% of the time.
That's likely to change if the cars are being run by a driverless car service. They'll already have the numbers to know how many single-person cars to maintain in the fleets as compared to five seaters. Fuel / electricity will be cheaper for smaller vehicles. If traffic does notably increase, tolls and congestion taxes will come more into play and be lower for smaller cars. Single person cars could split lanes (like motorcycles).
At that point, the economic incentives change, and we could see different outcomes.
We (as a society) are fully capable of building single-person cars. It's just the economics of car ownership incentivize having four to five seats and a lot of trunk space just in case you need it, even if you aren't using them 99% of the time.
That's likely to change if the cars are being run by a driverless car service. They'll already have the numbers to know how many single-person cars to maintain in the fleets as compared to five seaters. Fuel / electricity will be cheaper for smaller vehicles. If traffic does notably increase, tolls and congestion taxes will come more into play and be lower for smaller cars. Single person cars could split lanes (like motorcycles).
At that point, the economic incentives change, and we could see different outcomes.