Just about every aspect of the robot-driven car of the future lends itself to marketing. Is it a coincidence, then, that Google—maybe the dominant advertiser in the information age—is so keen on developing the technology? Doubtful.

Self-driving cars could be the future of public transportation, but at the very least they will change the logic of and in many ways supplant the need for large public transportation projects. A fleet of robo-cars could one day deliver personalized, decentralized public transportation. But what does that mean for our cities’s buses and trains?