Another common excuse for fantasizing about futuristic transport solutions is that non-cyclists just don't understand how much time cycling can save for most of their city trips between 2 and 10km. … Instead they are limited to fanciful ideas like "whistlecars" — apparently in the future you'll just whistle (or the smartphone equivalent) and a robocar will materialise in seconds to whisk you to your destination.

Eventually autonomous vehicles will allow “whistlecar” service, and whether fully autonomous or not would, this service is likely to fundamentally change the ownership model of automobiles. Like present-day car-sharing services or taxis, a whistlecar subscription would mean one car could serve the needs of many people, instead of remaining parked most of the day waiting for its one owner to return.

Changes in transportation technology have tended to be accompanied by changes to transportation systems, too. Long-time technologist Brad Templeton argues that this will, in fact, be the case. And he's even got an idea of what the big shift might be. We could enter the age of the "whistlecar."

[W]e might find ourselves with a technology that is trusted to move vehicles at safe speeds on the roads, but not to carry passengers. This could be used to deliver vehicles to drivers on demand, but which are still human driven once the people get in.

I’m going to use the term « whistlecar » for these, as the idea is reminiscent of how the Lone Ranger could just whistle for his horse, Silver, and the horse would appear from him to ride.