In a networked system, central control is not necessary. The cars will "talk" to each other and unlike humans, yield gracefully.
Yes, but there are greater opportunities when you have central control. Imagine never needing to stop at a stop sign or red light, because at every intersection you come to, the line of cars going by has made an opening for you by slowing down ever so slightly a mile back, anticipating when your car would arrive. Imagine being able to start routing traffic around an accident site (because deer still happen) the instant the accident occurs. Imagine emergency vehicles being able to drive at the maximum safe speed on each road because all cars have already pulled over and cleared out of intersections. Granted, these things are partially doable by using car-to-car communication to form a headless network, but there would be the issue of when cars are too far from each other to complete the "circuit" of communication.
The speaker also speaks glowingly of temporary leasing of vehicles, which means an owner's car can be working instead of parked when the owner does not need it. Right now our cars mostly remain parked.
I didn't grow up with anyone who would share their car with another human being, especially if that person is so poor that they couldn't afford their own car That will probably go over much better in less developed countries. Maybe cities will be okay with it, since city-dwellers have more experience with public transportation.
