[jfengel]

Self-driving cars have the possibility to be transformational rather than evolutionary.

Self-driving cars mean you can get rid of on-street parking, freeing up a lot of travel lanes. They will speed up driving, since they have better reaction times and can communicate with each other to travel more closely. The time you do spend in a car can be more productive, effectively opening up whole new hours of your life. You can use them to move children around without having to drive them, opening up new educational opportunities. Ultimately tens of thousands of lives per year will be saved: humans are terrible drivers.

I don't really know what it will be like: transformational change is always unpredictable. Our entire physical infrastructure is built around driving, both in the cities and elsewhere, and changing the way we relate to our cars can radically alter the way we construct our lives. Maybe nothing will happen, but it's worth considering that this is a real technology that is getting very close and has enormous potential far beyond the "faster horse".