I no longer own a car, just use a ride share like car2go when I need to get somewhere. Also, I hate owning things. Renting what I need for when I need it and letting someone else deal with the nitty-gritty of maintenance frees my time and my mind. And I am not alone. Most corporate compute is rented. Most commercial space is rented. Most offices are rented. That most houses (in the US) are owned is an artifact of the way thing came to be. If land had no intrinsic value, and renting was a universally more economical option, then real estate ownership would drop dramatically over time.
that a single product, a single vehicle needs to do both the moving and the accommodation of the user
That’s a good point. Short trips only need moving, and longer travel needs to include accommodation, though not necessarily of a house-type kind. So, there is some room for what you propose, but probably not for the daily commute, where splitting the tug from the cabin is not necessarily economical. Still, I can see that standardized tugs might be economically viable in some niche cases.
It’s not either/or.
I no longer own a car, just use a ride share like car2go when I need to get somewhere. Also, I hate owning things. Renting what I need for when I need it and letting someone else deal with the nitty-gritty of maintenance frees my time and my mind. And I am not alone. Most corporate compute is rented. Most commercial space is rented. Most offices are rented. That most houses (in the US) are owned is an artifact of the way thing came to be. If land had no intrinsic value, and renting was a universally more economical option, then real estate ownership would drop dramatically over time.
That’s a good point. Short trips only need moving, and longer travel needs to include accommodation, though not necessarily of a house-type kind. So, there is some room for what you propose, but probably not for the daily commute, where splitting the tug from the cabin is not necessarily economical. Still, I can see that standardized tugs might be economically viable in some niche cases.
Home ownership is common in part because it has large tax advantages.