The Problems Driverless Cars Solve
January 9, 2018
Did you know that in 2014, there were over 200MM drivers who visited the DMV? Hi, I’m Creighton Taylor. And I’m here to talk to you about the horror that affect millions of Americans today: the DMV. According to this 2015 DMV study, helpless Americans lose 2.65 hours on trips to the DMV every year standing in drab lines waiting to speak with unenthusiastic employees . This has got to stop.
The answer? Cars that drive themselves. No longer will we see cars driving against traffic on a one-way road. No longer will we have our space violated by some texting teen driver. No more DMV.
Look, we know self-driving cars solve a lot of problems. Yes, the goal of the 20+ entrants is to save the lives lost from car crashes, but self-driving cars actually solves other problems as well. I made a project of quantifying the problems solved in the U.S. alone.
As you may know, in the world of self-driving cars, people no longer own cars. You summon them with your thumb at a whim. This world requires a huge shift from the world that we live in today. Last year, we had over $60 billion in car sales, over $100 billion in parking revenues, over $300MM in gas sales, over $250MM car insurance revenue, and over $250MM professional driving income. Wow. Below is a summary of areas I could quantify where we could have real annual savings:
These markets total $1.3 trillion dollars. Since self-driving cars could, in theory, significantly reduce or eliminate many of these line items, I estimate that self-driving cars could save more than $1 trillion in these costs alone in a single year. The costs of operating driverless cars in the U.S. will be significantly less than $1 trillion.
And then there are problems solved that I had more difficulty quantifying or finding the necessary information, including lives saved from car crashes and road rage, fewer greenhouse gas emissions, less overhead for detecting and enforcing driving violations, higher financial viability of on-demand products and services, fewer car thieves processed and jailed, and a reduction in real estate prices people are more willing to commute without punching someone in the throat. There’s an argument that could be made that these areas add another trillion dollars, if not much more. Ah, and of course, the elimination of the universally hated “designated driver” that buzzkills like clockwork. Yes, there are huge benefits indeed.
The main drawback on driverless cars is that they kickoff an age of advanced automation, where everyone may struggle to keep their jobs. Structural unemployment will reach all time high. However, fret not. We’ve been through this before. In the industrial revolution between 1760 and 1840, jobs were automated and we saw huge GDP and GDP / capita growth, raising our standard of living. Today, the real GDP/capita (adjusted for inflation) is the highest its ever been and the unemployment rate stands at 4.1%. We will be okay. Just take a course on Udemy.com to learn the skills of the future. Self-driving cars will lead to unprecedented levels of productivity since Americans spend billions of hours driving and angrily commuting. In the long term, this rise in productivity will increase our tax revenue, reduce our fiscal deficit, and ultimately cut away our national debt of $20 trillion. Yes, $20 trillion. As a leader in technology, the U.S. needs to start using it to its advantage. But that’s a whole ‘nother conversation.
Creighton
For President ‘32
P.S. Upvote my answer to this question on Quora here.
P.S.S. Data from which calculation is based is derived from a long list of reputable sources. Sources available upon request.