If you could rent/purchase a vehicle without a steering wheel, would you not want there to be someone available who can help out when the system runs into trouble?
As long as there is no driver in the car, does it matter how it drives? Is that not just an irrelevant implementation detail that has no bearing on your passenger experience?
As long as it requires some humans to be available to "assist", I'm not sure anyone would sell or buy such a vehicle. Or rent in the "car rental" sense. Taxi service is what makes sense.
If I own the car, and I'm sending it to do errands for me while I work or sleep, seems like the cost of someone being available to "assist" it at short notice would be prohibitive. Unless it requires assistance once a month or so.
If you're sending it to do errands, you might consider also sending it out to take riders, as a side hustle. Do that, and you're now a taxicab service.
Point being, I suspect many people don't want to own any vehicle, whatever level of automation it has (which could be none). The reason we do is that taking taxis everywhere is too expensive. If that cost can be brought down, however it's done (computer brain, cab driver, capuchin monkey, whatever), many people will be happy to forgo owning a vehicle.
