The $30k will have already been spent though, right? When the ride-calling service is extremely economical, it will be a sub-$10 decision. You'll be thinking "I can take this Uber for $4, or I have to drive my car and pay for parking/valet, get gas on the way."

Where I live, registration and insurance for each car is $1,500+/year.

First, people won't need their second or third car. We use ours 2-3 days a week at most. It's barely worth the registration and insurance now.

People growing up purely with on-call cars may never buy their own - that's an entire generation coming through thinking like that. Once we're out of the commuting workforce, we might ditch our primary cars and instead get everything delivered and use on-call cars for social engagements.

I think those first stages of dropping the second car will start to happen in the next few years.

I don’t know that Uber will take down the to grocery store for $4, let alone get me anywhere useful like work. Probably someday, but not today, not in the eight years the author predicts, and probably not within my lifetime (middle-aged oldster here). I think the author’s mistake was applying iPhone timelines to cars. What the article says will happen, of that I am confident. But I think the author is off by an order of magnitude in many cases (like oil companies going out of business).

You don't think that Uber will do local rides to the supermarket for $4 within eight years?

It would be under $10 for me now. Take out the driver and fuel and two significant costs are eliminated.

I think people will eventually have monthly passes that get the average ride down a fair way.