Every tech revolution - and self driving cars will be that big time - brings the good and the bad.
Cars the first time - brought many good things (roads, industry) and bad things (opec/oil wars, pollution, hiway accidents, drunk driving - i'm sure that happend on horses but odds are you didn't kill anyone while riding home from the bar).
Self driving cars - how would YOU use one? - Door drop off at every store - let the car park itself - or circle town till I"m ready for it.
-no more shuttling my kids around - just send the car!
-heard on the radio they expect sex on wheels to be common in self driving cars..plus no doubt drinking, sleeping, watching movies, working, etc.
Revolution...taxi service, OTR truckers, gone. Delivery 'pods' - your car has 2,000 moving parts. an elec car, 20. Your car uses $2k a year in gas. An elec car $300 in juice. RIGHT NOW you can buy elec cars for LESS than the avg price of a new car - and it will get cheaper as battery prices/performance are improving at 14-16% a year - and accellerating!
Ford and GM have already started planning for the elec future. Less than 5 years I bet 30% of the cars sold will be elec. And I may be low on that. 3 years ago the self driving tech (sensors, computers, etc) cost $50,000 per car - now they are $1700. Yes, under 2k.
AT&T in 1985, huge corp, predicted cell phone usage in 2000 to be 985,000 phones. They missed that...it was 100,000,000- nd that was BEFORE smart phones. A mix of tech and price made that happen.
YOu don't know you want, or need it - till you have it or can have it.
I grew up with one phone in the house, no answering machine, 4 or 5 TV channels and no remote, no recording, not even 24 hour TV, no microwave or crock pot. Coffee was made on the stove.
Now you can watch ANYTHING on your phone ANYWHERE..internet gives you access to all human knowledge instantly.
Elec self driving cars will replace most privately owned cars in 20 years - you'll use an app to have a ride show up, subscription like. No need to own a car, pay insurance, maintenance, etc.
More room in the garage for a self driving tractor! LOL