Robocars - Autonomous Drive, Self-driving, Driver-less cars

More dystopia:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/comment/how-self-driving-cars-could-turn-into-a-nightmare/

"I walk everywhere in the city now because traffic is worse than ever. Who needs parking spaces when you can send your driverless car around the block while you do your shopping?"
...
"Traditional carmakers needed sales to stay afloat, whereas Apple and the other tech companies making driverless machines did not. With account balances bigger than most Western governments’ and countless entertainment products on the peripheral market, they could afford to run a loss leader. They undercut the entire insurance sector by self-insuring their machines and within a year the cost of insuring a self-driver went through the roof."

--- Ben Collins looking back from 2025

http://www.ptua.org.au/myths/robotcar/

"The big downside comes in robot cars’ likely effect on traffic volumes. Simulations and thought experiments alike tend to agree that a move from human-driven to robot cars will add traffic to the roads rather than reduce it. This follows in large part from the (otherwise positive) effect on parking behaviour: individually-owned cars will drive home empty and return empty when summoned later, while shared cars will travel empty between bookings or circle the streets in anticipation of bookings to be made. The most optimistic scenarios assume robot cars carry multiple passengers as a type of demand-responsive bus service, but still predict an increase in traffic. More pessimistic scenarios assume individualised robot car service replaces public transport use, and predict a doubling of traffic or worse. The Fehr & Peers study splits the difference, forecasting a 25% to 35% increase in traffic with a fully autonomous car fleet."

http://www.fehrandpeers.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/FP_Think_Next_Gen_Vehicle_White_Paper_FINAL.pdf