Once you have a comfortable bed, a 10 hour drive is simply a matter of sleeping in your car. This should have considerable impact upon land use, trains, and air travel. I have to wonder if people won't start living in moving apartments. If fuel is very cheap, the car can drive about as you sleep.
This is the most thought provoking part of the whole article to me. Can we trust profit-driven companies to prioritize passenger safety?When faced with an unavoidable impact, should self-driving vehicles try to minimise injuries to their own passengers, or minimise harm overall?
What I love about the idea of driverless cars is how it expands the usability of electric cars. I live in a multifamily dwelling, as do many people. I can't charge a car at home right now. But if a driverless car could drive off to charge itself and return when I summon it, that's resolved. The same is true of visiting a distant city. I no longer need to worry about charger access at my destination as long as my car can drive itself to a location miles away.
Hopefully multifamily dwellings will soon start installing more charging stations. Or perhaps it could end up being more of a public utility ie charging stations attached to the power infrastructure so you can park on the side of the street and plug in.