1) This is based on a community system. They don't have to get that much cheaper. Considering buses cost around 300,000$ already, and one would imagine that as the technology becomes cheaper, considering the article you sent is already listing three ways this technology could be made cheaper - and that's without the fact that technology like this tends to get cheaper over time. Not to say there won't be new technology coming out that's even better and just as expensive, but you can buy a computer for 50$ that would have cost hundreds of dollars twenty years ago. One would imagine there would be cheap versions of this.

2) Again, based on a community system. For a safer city, there are loads of places that would be willing to invest. Plus, cab companies, car rental companies, all looking for ways to get a cheaper edge on the competition. People die A LOT in car accidents. I think you're underestimating how important safety is to a lot of people.

3) All the articles I've listed seem to believe so.

4) Or profit companies, like cabs or rental cars.

Now, I'm not trying to say that this is one hundred percent going to happen. There's the possibility that these cars will never drop in cost, somehow being the one shining bastion of technology that doesn't get cheaper over time. It's possible that, somehow, these cars will be destroyed far more quickly and not outweigh the costs of having less cars on the road (though there's no evidence to support that). There's the possibility that somehow, no company will want in.

But over fifty years? Think of the advancements we've made from 1965 to now. The idea that these cars won't become even more efficient, even more affordable, and safer doesn't seem very likely. We're talking fifty years!

Computers were first mass produced in 1965! They were selling for 3200$. You can't buy a computer as weak as they were, and the cheap ones you can get that are dozens of times stronger can be as cheap as fifty bucks. Do you know how much cheaper that is? Sixty four times cheaper. In fifty years, without adjusting for inflation even, we made the latest breakthrough in technology sixty four times cheaper.

I suppose it's possible that this technology will stagnate, that you won't be able to buy the self-driving system (250,000 according to your article) and have it cost four thousand dollars, but fifty years. We've done a lot of shit in the past fifty. I see no reason to think we won't do a lot more.