Yet on the other hand many people have proposed parking will be eliminated- instead of parking your car, you'll just send it off to drive in circles around the interstate for a few hours! Wouldn't that be marvelous!

Just because there is no person in the car, that won't stop it from driving around looking for parking.

After my car drives me 45 minutes to work it still needs to park nearby to pick me up after work.

Maybe it won't be your car, but part of a fleet. So it drops you off and then picks someone else up, perhaps someone doing the reverse commute. Even if it has to go park itself at some fleet lot outside the city center, it should be a marginal improvement over circling, looking for a spot.

You'll change your mind about it not being your car the first time you get into one, it takes off, then you're like "sniff...sniff...ohgodwhatzatsmell", suddenly realizing some drunk person puked (or worse) in the back seat area.

That's one reason I avoid public transit in San Francisco.

However, it hasn't been a problem in my use of taxis, rental cars, Uber, or Lyft, so I presume it won't be a problem with autonomous cars. They'll either drive themselves to the car wash when someone has an accident (spills, pees, vomits), or if for some reason a "wet" car arrives, then you'll report it, and get the next one.

It can park much further away, and it could even wirelessy locate and reserve a parking spot.

And park closer together. I imagine my office parking lot's physical capacity would increase by at least 60% if we didn't have to get in and out of the vehicles. It already has capacity for around 1000 workers (maybe more).

Even if they didn't move the lot, my car could drop me off at the entrance and then go find an available spot. The lot is huge, close to a 1/4 mile walk from the furthest available space to my entrance. I wouldn't mind not having to worry about that on those days I'm running late.

And they won't need as much space for backing/driving- especially if they can communicate with each other- a car that is blocked in could signal the other cars that it needs out, and they could move to make space for it to get out.