Bill, the older I get, the more the car/truck becomes an "appliance" as you put it. Now, I admit, I haven't had a car payment since about 1995 or 6. I'm not into taking the horrendous hit a brand new car demands. Last car was a $500.00 auction special I have since put another $250.00 into. Runs great, good gofer car (05 Escape). Before that I did splurg a bit and get a 97 F350 4WD Crew Cab for $4k to replace my 2nd Toyota PU with 300K and severe rust on it. Expensive to run, expensive to fix, great farm truck. My "toy", if I have one is an '83 Jeep CJ8 Scrambler I got for $300 out of Alaska with virtually no rust. If I ever get time, and I may kick off before that happens, I'll have my version of a sports car. Airplanes...yup, always wanted one, to learn to fly, etc. I got used to wanting and not getting many, many years back!
A self driving car? No, never for me. They can't design brakes that work all the time, fuel pumps or wiper motors that don't fail. They've had about 100 years to do that. Self driving cars? They can't give us a simple home computer that doesn't crash trying while we're to read the weather forecast. Think about that!