That's fine but you still have to get to/from the train station, which is a problem cars solve very well. All the better if the car drives itself. They complement each other which is why I find it so strange that discussion of trains shows up in these threads so often as though though they're some kind of panaceanic alternative that is being overlooked.

> because it's not some private ownership tech hype bullshit

I don't want to own a car, but I do want privacy, and I do want to go directly from point A to point B without being on a train. I have absolutely no reason to want to board a train as an alternative unless I want to go very fast from A to a very far away B. That is a real problem that is being solved for, not just hype. Aspiring to be cattle isn't noble.

EDIT: Also - rail doesn't get built because they're expensive projects, they take up a lot of space that people can't walk on, that cars can't drive on, that isn't useful to park housing or commerce near. Autonomous vehicles slot nicely into infrastructure that exists already, that already has the advantage of being point-to-point.

If the goal is "improve transit", autonomous vehicles achieve that without directly competing with trains. If the goal is, for some reason, "less cars", they also arguably achieve that because you'd end up with less private ownership of cars. If the goal is "no cars", I have no idea what the point of that would be.