To each his own, but I don't want to have to get permission from Google, Tesla or anyone else before driving somewhere, then be escorted under surveillance like a prisoner in the back of a cop car with every possible metric being mined and correlated for the benefit of corporations, insurance companies and the state, leaving my safety to the whim of algorithms and systems likely built to the cheapest standard possible.

I'll gladly deal with the "chore" of being able to turn my own key and drive my own car as an alternative.

Yeah, as someone from a rural background, it always strikes me as far-fetched that people are going to give up ownership of vehicles because of driverless tech. People routinely spend 10x what they need to on a car, living well outside their means for essentially status (buying a new BMW instead of a used Honda for example). Moreover, there is more to owning your own car than privacy. It’s really damned convenient to have your car loaded up with your stuff. Your snow gear, your bike gear, your tools, your emergency electronic tools and first aid. I like to keep a folding chair in my car, it’s surprisingly convenient. I don’t have a ton of experience living in cold climates but I did spur-of-the-moment cross country road trip in February a few years ago. We left from the Bay Area headed to Indiana, and when we stopped outside of Chicago for gas and I realized how naive our plans were. I had to get back in the car while gas was pumping it was so cold. If we had car problems or an accident dying of exposure could have been a real thing. We didn’t have cold-weather gear with us, I was wearing jeans and a hoodie, and I really felt like an idiot for it. Such fears can be easily solved by having blankets and food and chemical heat sources in the car, which I’m pretty sure is normal for people in those climates. You can’t really have gear with you like that if the driverless car goes and gets another fare once you reach your destination.

I wonder at what point they'll just solve the safety issue by removing the windshield and adding shit loads of impact absorption and a few steel plates that isn't possible on vehicles where the driver needs to be able to see outside.

The limiting factor right now is mostly that nobody wants to wear 4/5/6pt harnesses or have a properly fitting bucket seat (these things are a big pain in the butt for a daily driver) so we have to keep shoving explosively deployed cushions into places so humans don't bounce off of harder things.

The fact that we can't replace the windshield with something else will likely never be a practical limitation for the foreseeable future.