There is no car rental in my parents village and the bus only comes a few times a day. Car sharing works great in bigger cities but is not even an option outside those. I use one in Berlin and have never owned a car actually.
Perfect for people like my mother would be a self driving car that you can summon to your door in a few minutes. But even calling a taxi takes half an hour+. So it would have to be faster than that.
I live in a big city and use car sharing, and I don't think it works great at all. The fundamental problem with it, and the thing that is always overlooked in the calculations of how much time private cars are unused, is that everyone wants the cars at the same time. Mornings + afternoons (commute times) and weekends. Also highly depending on the weather, which means even planning a day ahead is very hard. If it's sunday afternoon and the weather is nice, good luck finding a free car in the car sharing.
- bus: a few times a week (if at all), because of cost efficiency
- taxi: hours, + only if you book at least a day in advance, because they’re just not sitting there waiting for a call, they’re busy towards where people are/go, which is, like, the other way.
Throw in no/unstable/limited power grid, and you double down on one of the use cases.
There wouldn't, when there's only demand for 15 outbound journeys a day from a given hamlet, equally spread on the 4 roads in and out, your bus isn't going to get used.
Perfect for people like my mother would be a self driving car that you can summon to your door in a few minutes. But even calling a taxi takes half an hour+. So it would have to be faster than that.