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fierycatnet 5 hours ago

I have a feeling that once everything goes EV and autopilot, they will start phasing out regular cars or will make it more difficult to obtain the license.

jillesvangurp 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This will be a gradual process. But probably getting a drivers license will become a lot less common for people over time. There won't be any need once cars drive themselves.

Insurance and liability become a lot simpler if you just don't touch the controls at all. There will be a clear split between people who don't drive and therefore are not liable and the remaining group that still drives and is causing most of the remaining accidents (and cost for insurers). That's going to inevitably get more scrutiny from everybody: insurers, authorities, occupants of self driving vehicles, other manual drivers.

This will probably be insurance driven. If you don't need to drive anymore, you don't actually need a license. And if you are not driving, you can't be held liable for damage caused by your vehicle. You'll still need insurance to cover any damage/harm your vehicle might cause but this will likely be quite cheap given autonomous cars are safer and on average don't really get involved in accidents. It's quite possible that eventually just gets folded into warranty terms for your car and covered by the manufacturer.

As manually driving increasingly becomes a choice rather than a necessity, your insurance for that might become conditional on you being current and proficient in the same sense that licensed pilots need to regularly do check rides to verify they can still safely operate a plane. Additionally, insurers might insist on you passing a regular health checks to verify that you are still fit enough to drive. Some countries already test elderly drivers but there are lots of elderly people with pretty serious health issues passing these tests as well. Expect this to get a lot more strict.

fierycatnet an hour ago | parent [-]

Yes, I'm thinking the same, good write up.

goda90 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And it'll negatively impact all but the upper classes. Automakers would rather everyone use their autopilot taxi services for the higher profit margins, so autopilot EVs will be prohibitively expensive to outright buy.

Gigachad an hour ago | parent [-]

I think it would positively impact lower classes because car ownership is by far the biggest financial drain you can take on.

archagon 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think the vast majority of voters will have something to say about that.

paulnpace 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Also, the autonomous car companies will have their vehicles coordinating to make it difficult for humans to drive, such as holding a long convoy with close following distance in a single lane.