Yes, it's absolutely huge. A while back I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation trying to account for the direct and indirect economic benefits, and it was on

Yes, it's absolutely huge. A while back I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation trying to account for the direct and indirect economic benefits, and it was on the order of a trillion dollars a year. That might even be low, because I don't think I considered your points about parking and real estate. I would have agreed with your barriers, but I'm very encouraged by Google's experiments. They show that you can deploy automated vehicles alongside normal traffic, and that getting government permission isn't an insurmountable problem. If it does gain traction, there will be a point where our collective rationality will be tested. It's nearly certain that occasional system malfunctions will occur resulting in deaths. Hopefully we'll be able to realize that such incidents are on balance vastly less harmful than the damage done by human drivers, and won't allow manufacturers to be sued out of existence or shut down by demagoguing politicians.