Those are good points. If I have trouble imagining self-driving vehicles navigating Boston at rush hour, it truly boggles the mind to imagine them making it around Bangkok, Jakarta, or KL. I'm an experienced driver and I wouldn't want to.

And, as you say, while a lot of people probably overestimate the driver cost as a percentage of a taxi ride in developed Western countries, it truly is almost negligible in Southeast Asia. It's very common for people to have full-time drivers.