University of British Columbia transportation expert AnnaLisa Meyboom had a similar but much more developed thought. “They (AVs) could make local buses and urban light rail obsolete. Private autonomous car sharing services could take over public transit and taxis. Or public transit organizations could decide to run autonomous vehicle fleets,” she said in a UBC News interview in March 2015.

Of course, autonomous Leafs of the future will undoubtedly be able to learn. They’ll build up a repository of experience that they’ll compare with their database of maps and their real-time LIDAR images and maybe zip around with their digital elbow hanging out the window and one virtual finger on the wheel.

Or maybe not. Like most automakers, Nissan is unlikely to let go of the “fun to drive” factor willingly. Here’s how Nissan Canada’s Mr. Meunier puts it: “Drivers will have the choice to enjoy the pleasure of driving themselves or choosing to travel in partnership with the vehicle. As a result, the desire for performance, handling and “fun-to-drive” characteristics is likely to remain important – as is the idea that consumers want to feel that their vehicle represents them and is an opportunity for self-expression.”

“In partnership with my vehicle?” Who would have thought?

But on the other hand, MIT’s Ryan C.C. Chin writes, “Imagine the following scenario: a customer uses a smartphone app to request an autonomous shared [self-driving] vehicle, it arrives at your door and drops you to your destination, and the vehicle then either moves on and picks up another customer or parks itself and recharges.”

In such a world of driverless cars — which is pretty close to Google’s aspiration, by the way — there would conceivably be a, “90 percent reduction in accidents resulting in 30,000 fewer deaths per year in the US alone, along with two million fewer injuries and $400 billion accident-related cost savings.There would be 4.8 million fewer commuting hours, billions of litres in fuel savings, and increased car utilization from 5 or 10 percent to 75 percent,” calculates Mr. Chin.

And here’s the kicker for the automakers…. “a 90 percent reduction in cars.” Oh, really? Sure, with all the scheduling efficiencies, you just won’t need as many cars. It’s the whole “unused capacity, sharable economy” scenario. How’s that for disruptive?

“The fact is…,” according to a recent Forbes series by consultant Chunka Mui, “…that a driverless car would slash hundreds of billions of dollars of annual revenue, or even trillions, from all sorts of entities: car makers, parts suppliers, car dealers, auto insurers, auto financiers, body shops, emergency rooms, health insurers, medical practices, personal-injury lawyers, government taxing authorities, road-construction companies, parking-lot operators, oil companies, owners of urban real estate, and on and on and on.”

Yes, in the view of Canadian transportation specialist Paul Godsmark, the deployment of AVs represents, “a paradigm shift as significant as the shift from horses to cars.”

The Conference Board of Canada is already on this, and they are taking it very seriously. Their 2014 report “Automated Vehicles: The Coming of the Next Disruptive Technology” is “intended to be a wake-up call for public and private policy-makers, who must act soon to keep Canada in the “game” of automated vehicles. “AVs will be nothing less than the first widely available autonomous robots to be used by nearly everyone in the world’s advanced economies,” opines the Conference Board.

Road Safety organizations, Transport Canada, M.A.A.D., are all getting up to speed (trying to keep up, really). The Ontario government was supposed to begin testing autonomous cars in 2013 with a view to modernizing traffic laws but the program was postponed. Now it’s supposed to begin in 2015. They’d better get a move on.

You think Taxi drivers don’t like Uber? They haven’t seen anything, yet. Taxi drivers themselves are an endangered species. Little robotic cars are heading your way. Taxi droids, as opposed to delivery droids or tow droids. But in Geneva, the combative Sergio Marchione, continuing his observations about AVs, concluded by asking what was to him the most obvious question: “Why would you buy a Ferrari and not want to drive it?”

Good question, assuming the brand doesn’t morph into a maker of high-end pleasure droids.

Speaking of those, Mercedes-Benz recently showcased its autonomous prototype for 2030+, the F-015 Luxury in Motion, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. More a research platform than prototype, the F015 has 1,100 km of range from its combination battery and hydrogen fuel cell drive train. It will and does drive itself while occupants enjoy its variable seating “luxury lounge” interior. According to Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars, “Anyone who focuses solely on the technology has not yet grasped how autonomous driving will change our society. The car is growing beyond its role as a mere means of transport and will ultimately become a mobile living space.” Mercedes Benz calls this a “mobility revolution.”

As if right on cue for this article (if you’re reading in early 2015), a Delphi Automotive-equipped Audi Q5 fitted with a suite of autonomous technologies that Delphi currently makes available or is developing, departed from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge heading to New York City “on its ownsome,” as my mother used to say. It left on March 22 and arrived a week later.

Although there was be a person behind the wheel (yes, it has a steering wheel), the occupant (passenger?) was not expected to intervene in the vehicle’s progress unless required (construction zones, accident scenes). The 5,600 km journey, 99 percent of which it completed in autonomous mode, established a North American record for AVs. It’ll help Delphi in the ongoing development of its systems, but it’s pretty good marketing, too.

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