Automated Autonomous Vehicles: Prospects and Impacts on Society

摘要

All automobile manufacturing companies, Google and Microsoft have announced recently their production of the Fully Automated Autonomous Vehicles (FAAVs), otherwise known as driverless cars. A few FAAVs would be available in the market as early as in 2018, but mostly in 2020’s. When FAAVs will be available to and become affordable by the average consumers, the implications to the society would be far reaching. The purpose of the paper is to examine the prospect of the popularity of FAAVs and their socio-economic implications to the future society of the World. The paper examines potential impacts on selected sectors of the society including changes in demand for automobiles, its impact on the use of oil, on the environment, and on urban land uses, to list a few.