Aside from that, I agree with what appears to be your premise -- that we could invent public transport devices that mitigate and perhaps mostly erase the advantage of the car.
But then I'd ask ... why? Why are we supposed to hate cars? It's okay to like scooters and bikes, but nothing larger until we get to a bus? I imagine a future with all sorts of automated cars that never get into an accident and roll silently along emitting not a whiff of noxious fumes, while being big enough to carry just the right amount. If nobody needs to own their own car, then they can call a car that is sized for their exact needs. One passenger or ten. They efficiently get to exactly where they are going in the minimum time possible with minimum effort. What a dream!
That's not quite my premise.
Rather, it is that shared self-driving automobiles (cars through vans through buses) with centralized automated dispatch are the missing element of the mix of public transport devices that, alongside existing options, does that.
> Why are we supposed to hate cars?
Recognizing that public transport has social benefits does not require hating privately owned cars, much less cars more generally.
> It's okay to like scooters and bikes, but nothing larger until we get to a bus?
Size has nothing to do with anything (well, it has to do.with efficiency for long-distance transport.)
Private point-to-point loses out mostly for long-distance already, short-distance currently either allows last-mile, station overhead, and related concerns to big down shared transportation or suffers from sharing infrastructure optimized for private point-to-point.
Ubiquitous automated (on-demand, not personal cars actually make the station problem easier, since you need less parking at stations, making station footprints smaller, and reducing delay from arrival at station to boarding.
They could also merge with buses: instead of fixed routes and schedules, vehicle sizes and routing are demand driven for efficiency (perhaps allowing you to pay a premium to guarantee a dedicated vehicle for your party.)