Yeah, some sort of licensing for commercial use would provide a way to properly monetize this service. If you had this license for private use, I'm not sure how Tesla would be able to enforce it. If I have the private use license and let my friends borrow my car, how does Tesla know whether I am actually making commercial use of the vehicle.
So one option is for Tesla to charge a certain rate per mile for full autonomous driving, say 25c/mile. This would be easily enforceable and could keep the cost of purchase low. So you can buy your $40k Model 3 and have until item use of autopilot. But if you really want the car to be self driven it will cost you a little for this service. Perhaps a typical private user might use this service about 4000 miles per year, or $1000 per year. But if you are an Uber, you are trying to put 100k autonomous miles on the car each year, so you wind up paying Tesla an extra $25k per year for the service. Moreover, Uber is happy to pay this fee because it is much cheaper than paying a human driver. Additionally a commercial vehicle is going to want special software and hardware for doing point of sale transactions and monitoring the vehicle occupants. So an Uber would be willing to pay for these extra features as well.
So perhaps something like that would properly monetize the value of fully autonomous driving. It may take a while for consumers to adjust to it. Consumers would wonder why they would need to pay 25c/mile just to use autonomy when they have already purchased the care outright. The answer is that an unlimited autonomous driving license would cost over $200k, so it is cheaper to pay per mile. It's a bit like asking why do I have to pay $9/month. Because a lifetime subscription would cost $2500. So the transition to transportation as a service (TaaS ) impacts how cars are sold for private ownership.
long due reminder
