Fully automated self-driving cars will be available for sale in cities by 2020.

They have very different economics than our current cars,

so won't fit in well with today's rules of play.

I see two distinct possibilities for our automated car future:

Heaven or Hell. We get to choose.

Forward-thinking leadership is going to make all the difference.

We get Hell by taking a wait-and-see approach. In this future people buy AVs instead of today's cars.

For trips once you get to your destination instead of paying for parking downtown,

it'll be cheaper to have your empty AV circle the block or drive back home.

The same is true for stores.

It could be cheaper to have a drugstore car drive to customers than to pay for retail space downtown.

Today 75% of all cars on the road have one occupant: the driver.

In the future, as we add more cars operating with their different economics,

50% of the cars will have no people in them, running low-value errands or avoiding parking.

Meanwhile all the taxi, bus, shuttle, and truck drivers will lose their jobs.

We'll also lose about 60% of our tax revenue that finances road infrastructure

because AVs are electric, don't park, and don't get parking tickets.

Our roads and bridges get a whole lot worse. We definitely don't want the Hell scenario.

We get Heaven by taking a proactive approach.

Over a million people in US cities are already car sharing

and in San Francisco

50% of people using ride-hailing apps now share their trips with another passenger who is a stranger.

Instead of spending $9,000 a year on your own car,

when we combine car-sharing and ride-hailing and buy a seat in a shared autonomous vehicle,

we can get door-to-door transport at the speed of private car travel for the cost of a subway ticket.

This transforms people's access to opportunity.

Car-sharing eliminates the need for parking. Ride-sharing reduces congestion.

We will only need 10 percent of the cars we have in cities today even at peak times.

No more on-street parking! No more parking garages!

IF most of the AVs in cities are shared cars in which people can share trips,

we can widen sidewalks, plant trees, put in bike lanes and benches.

We can get rid of parking lots and build affordable housing or public parks or whatever!

Establishing the criteria and priorities for newly available public land

will be critical to making sure communities get what they need.

We could also reduce air pollution and CO2 emissions as we move from gas to electric power for our cars.

But only if we demand that this new incremental electric energy use be renewable.

Happily, electric AVs will pay their fair share for road and bridge repair

because we will have made and created new user fees that apply to them.

We'll discourage empty zombie cars and make it more expensive to drive than to park.

But wait, what about all those people

who used to drive, repair cars, pump gas, design and build cars for a living?

They worked hard and their jobs disappeared almost overnight.

We need to make sure that people can diversify their income with benefits that are portable and apply

no matter how few hours you work, and we need to start piloting basic income.

So if we want Heaven and not Hell, we have to start working together

to get the right laws and regulations in place now, especially for the first cities that set the example.

Just as your head is reeling from the impact and potential for self-driving cars

realize that this is just the tip of the big automation iceberg.

Automation delivers enormous productivity gains without the associated labor.

It's like making honey without the worker bees. How will we distribute this new kind of honey?

Automation gives us reason to reconsider how, why, and where we tax,

and to think anew about what kind of world we want to live in.

So let's talk. Please contact me. http://www.osmosys.org