The Next Steps in Private Transportation

So, here is an idea, or two, about private automobile transportation.

First idea: EVs – or electric vehicles, or Tesla’s and their competition – still depend mostly on fossil fuel energy (petrol, natural gas, coal, ethanol) to fuel their electric batteries.  So, why not solar powered automobiles?  With much smaller batteries for driving in sun-less conditions.  Another advantage would be far fewer charging stations.  Today’s EV charging stations are partially funded by the government; those who do not drive EVs pay for them.  We have solar electricity for our homes, solar powered automobiles are not far behind.

Second idea: considering that most privately-owned automobiles are idle for 95% of their lives, maybe we could forsake personal automobile ownership and call for an automobile when we need one.  Just like we now do with Uber and Lyft, except that a self-driving automobile not in use would drive itself to us to drive wherever we wish.  And we would leave it at our (temporary) destination.  Ready to be called for by another driver.  For long trips, we would reserve an auto in advance.

There could be two forms of ownership:

• Small groups could form to own a single vehicle, say 10 persons to a group.  A typical group's members would live near to each other.  Group ownership would imply purchase of an automobile by the group, say at 10% of its purchase price per user.  Each use of the automobile would cost the driver based on time and mileage.  The group would need a treasurer to collect funds.
• Or automobiles could be owned by entrepreneurial individuals or corporations, and they would be available to anyone nearby at the last minute or for pre-planned long trips.  This would be the next step in the evolution of taxi service.  Initially, it would compete with Lyft/Uber rides.  Such a ride would be less expensive than a Lyft/Uber ride but more expensive than that group owned ride (see bullet above).
• These two kinds of vehicle ownership could co-exist with personal ownership of autos, with taxis, with Lyft and Uber, and with each other.

These evolutionary steps would be a boon to cleaning up the environment and to the cost of short rides by privately owned automobiles.  The downside would, of course, be: some people have a psychological need to own their automobiles and would continue to do so.

Any questions?  Any further ideas or elaborations?