If we look at the economics of Uber and Uber Eats, we see that they have shifted to ride sharing and also delivery sharing. In that, it makes more sense to bundle up multiple people and deliveries into one. Doesn't that sound a whole lot like buses?
Uber has drivers. There's probably some reason to customize car design for taxis, I'm not sure, but that's a modest difference relative to no driver and the greater expected scale of supplanting most human driving in time.
Whether Uber has drivers or had automated drivers doesn't really matter. I think they show that there isn't much business in point-to-point "automated" car rides.
If we look at the economics of Uber and Uber Eats, we see that they have shifted to ride sharing and also delivery sharing. In that, it makes more sense to bundle up multiple people and deliveries into one. Doesn't that sound a whole lot like buses?