Apart from the ownership question (carmaker vs. corporation), what you are describing are essentially what we all know as taxicabs.
For better or worse, personal transportation will become a regulated public utility.
And what happens when an electric utility experiences a demand spike? Mostly they restrict delivery of their service (i.e. brown outs) as a better alternative to cutting service altogether.
In your scenario the same thing would happen. The scheduling computer recognizes that several people from a given area are simultaneously requesting transportation to a certain destination, and the computer also realizes that there aren’t enough available cars at that moment to give everyone a private ride. What happens then?
There may well be service contract levels such that for a lower cost, you might have to accept pooling at times, or for a greater cost, you might have a guarantee of private transit. Waiting time will surely be an issue, hopefully with discounts for long waits.
We will probably see the end of mass spectator events (sports and concerts). Malls are almost dead now, so they will disappear altogether. Most brick’n’mortar retail options will be gone.
As you say, the future is sure to be very disrupted.
It won’t be carmaker vs corporation. It will be carmaker vs carmeker, sinc the only players left in the auto industry will be the different carmakers, but also acting as fleet operators for their own vehicles.
And, no, it won’t be like the current taxi operations of today. It will be all self-driving vehicles, with fleet operators (aka: the carmakers themselves) running business, with no human drivers whatsoever.
BTW time we get to that future 20-30 years from now, the fleet operators will have created their own power-generating stations, with no need to tie to the general electric grid. There will be no need for recharging stations on the roads, since all recharging will be done at the fleet operations centers. Instead of car dealers, we’ll have fleet operations centers to handle all the needs of the vehicles.
When it comes to demand for a number of vehicles in same area, that should be no problem at all, since, when a vehicle is done with a “ride”, it will become immediately available for the next ride. The number of vehicles available will depend upon population size and number of businesses and types of businesses in the area. If you think about it, most cars/vehicles sit at home or in parking lots for more than 90% of the time. That means that, making available enough vehicles to handle 80-90% of the needs of TODAY will more than meet the requirements of that driverless future. Vehicles will be available almost instantly, since they’ll be everywhere ready to be summoned at any time.
I also don’t see how a driverless future would disrupt going to stadiums for concerts or sporting events. In fact, more people might go to those events if they have the worries about parking and driving taken care of for them. I would not mind just going and enjoying and not worrying about finding a parking spot, where that parking spot might be a 1/2 mile away or more. Just drop me off at the door, and go find another rider in need. Even the older folks who don’t drive will find getting anywhere a lot easier, and will go places where they depended on family and friends to take them when they had the time.
The “disruption” in that future is for the better, but not necessarily for government entities that will lose huge tax revenues because of much lower demands for fuels, and will also lose taxes from loss of car sales.