How Self Driving Cars Could Change the World

Self driving cars (autonomous cars) could make significant changes in the way the world works. Especially in places where personal cars are significant (which is most cities and most countries). Autonomous cars will allow the passenger to do other things while being driven, and could also drive itself to pick up passengers.

There are lots of possible uses of the time saved instead of having to drive. You could watch TV, get extra sleep, do extra work on the computer, waste more time (some might say productive time) on social media channels, or even just get to watch the world around you (instead of just the cars ahead of you like most drivers need to do).

Not having to do the driving will mean that the commute time to work won’t be as important, as you can use that time for sleep, work or recreation instead. This could mean that cities will expand more geographically, as “commuter” suburbs expand due to people’s willingness to spend more time in the car. So people could live further away from their work or the places they need to go.

Local tourism could improve as people could go for a drive and be able to watch the scenery more easily. Although it may also mean people stop their cars less, which could have a negative impact on tourism income, due to less visitors in “along the way” stops.

The need for air travel (especially for short and mid distance journeys) could also decrease. A short business flight of say 400km could be more efficiently done by car, if the person can use that time to sleep or work instead. For example, a typical short domestic work trip to a regional site office can often include the following times (especially in modern times with some requirements to arrive and check in early):

Total travel time for air travel = 5 hours

That same journey could be done in about 5 hours by car. If that car was self driving it would mean the person could get in the car at home and sleep, watch TV, or work for that whole journey, without all the wasted time associated with air travel.

And, if self driving cars become standard on the road, driving speeds may be increased safely, therefore further reducing the travel time.

There are also significant safety benefits of self driving cars. An autonomous car should be able to react faster to changes than a human driver, won’t get tired or make mistakes, and make decisions quicker than any human could. Because of that improved safety, we should see a significant reduction in road related injuries and deaths, and of course big cost reductions in car insurance.

Another category of people that will benefit significantly are those who currently are not allowed to or are incapable of driving. Elderly people, unlicensed adults, mentally and physically disabled people, and even children, could all see increased travel freedom due to being able to travel in autonomous cars.

There are lots of companies developing self driving cars, including all the main car manufacturers, plus companies like Google, Apple, Zoox, and Tesla.

Fully autonomous cars aren’t available to buy yet, but there are lots under testing and even more still under development. Autonomous taxi’s (robotaxi’s) are currently in use in a number of places, and that seems to be the main market at first (in addition to self driving trucks).

Most newer car models include some of the technologies that will be part of self driving cars, such as crash prevention systems, lane guidance, radar cruise control etc. Some companies also have live pilot projects where a limited area or purpose is available (like the one by Waymo).

Currently, hurdles to the full roll out and widespread use of driverless autonomous cars include:

You can read a good summary of self driving cars on Wikipedia.

Some of the companies developing self driving cars (or at least their automation technology) include:

What other benefits or problems do you think may come from the widespread availability and use of self driving cars?