I mean if the cost is the same then yeah you might as well own it, but that seems unlikely, unless you're in the car for most of the day. Owning means you'll need your own insurance and do your own maintenance (yes, EVs require this). What's the actual advantage to owning the car? So you can leave your stuff in it? Not owning it will force you to take your stuff out, which you should be doing anyway!
> if the cost is the same then yeah you might as well own it
The cost per mile will be the same for whomever owns the vehicles, thus i think many will likely be in the position where they would pay at minimum equal, and likely more by adding in a middleman. For a parallel look into the critical point of usage when renting a vehicle is cheaper per year than owning one today.
> What's the actual advantage to owning the car?
Minimal latency to go. No dependancy on availability of vehicles so you can be fully in control to meet your commitments.
The primary place this is an issue is competition at rush hours or holidays, where a large percentage of the population are all in commute simultaneously all delocalized from each other. An operator would need nearly 1 specific car for each of all of them in order to guarantee each could make their commitment… so, if cost is similar, and one vehicle needs to be guaranteed for you anyways, the questions becomes why wouldn’t people ensure that themselves by owning it?
