> Tokyo does pretty well with purely public transport. There’s still cars of course, but you don’t use them for travel into the city proper if you don’t hate yourself

Japan has .67 vehicles per person, almost 80% America's .85 [1] and above many European countries. They travel about a fifth as many miles per capita as America [2]. But again, four fifths and a fifth. Nowhere close to zero.

There isn't a developed economy that wouldn't see a significant quality-of-life improvement from self-driving cars.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territor...

[2] https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar4.htm

Hence why I’m talking about Tokyo. Not Japan. Living in the countryside basically requires a car by definition. People also often have a car, but don’t use it that much. Maybe you’ll get more interesting numbers if you compare miles traveled per person?

Found only for 1997, but increases the discrepancy to 1:2.5 : https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar4.htm

> I’m talking about Tokyo. Not Japan

Tokyo would have a tough time existing in a world without cars, trucks or roads. Its economy depends on that access.

There is no tradeoff between self-driving cars and a multi-trillion dollar infrastructure rebuild.

> Tokyo would have a tough time existing in a world without cars, trucks or roads. Its economy depends on that access.

I will agree with that statement but mostly because you added trucks in when the original complaint was about car dependency.