I hadn’t thought of that one, but agree, that would be another big benefit. Probably other big changes to urban parking and infrastructure too.
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Another great reason for autonomous vehicles.
No need to wait for dodgy taxis or Uber vehicles and worry about the trip or any problems afterwards.
Hopefully you wil be able to go out to functions and be able to travel home in your, or another, autonomous vehicle without any concerns regarding being over the limit, being.assulted, or whatever.
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Yes, parking is just one market that autonomous vehicles will disrupt. When most vehicles don’t park at all (some might still need to wait while a customer does the shopping and loads it into the vehicle*-, for example) how much of the land currently devoted to parking will be freed up for other uses?
*- I can see it now. Do some shopping, load it into a leased autonomous vehicle. Go to another shop. Return to load it into the vehicle. It has absconded, with your shopping. 
No need to be able to drive. Autonomous vehicles could be a boon for the disabled. Hopefully, using autonomous vehicles will also be cheap enough to benefit those who can’t afford a vehicle at present.
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Whilst I believe autonomous vehicles will be fantastic, I do have some concerns in regard to them.
Whilst the autonomous vehicles will obviously be designed to avoid accidents wherever possible, in the initial period they will also have to co-exist with non-autonomous vehicles driven by idiots whose actions will be impossible to predict.
There is also the consideration of the vehicles’ software being hacked by criminals or terrorists for purposes such as kidnapping or assault of any occupants, or causing the vehicle to engage in a terror activity such as the Bourke Street Mall murderer’s actions.
Hopefully there will be some form of manual override so that if an occupied autonomous vehicle is highjacked, it can be either manually controlled or stopped by the passengers.
Now we have the case of Toyota who have announced that they will have autonomous vehicles on the road in 2020 but their Australian operations are in chaos after their computer systems were hacked.
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All things involve risk. Even doing nothing has its risks. There will still be accidents, injuries and deaths (though probably fewer than now, but that’s a different issue). We must do all that we can to mitigate the risks, of course, but we can’t eliminate them entirely. The question is whether the potential benefits warrant the risks.
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Exactly. When non-autonomous vehicles ar gone, the benefits will greatly outweight the risks, Terminator scenarios notwithstanding.
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You only need to catch public transport in the big smoke to understand the wonderfully beneficial activities people will plug their minds into once yet another skilled activity becomes automated for bulk processing. I’m not sure the ‘brave new world’ will be the wonderful place we are led to believe - “With bright knives he releaseth my soul” … the Weltschmerz is a little pervasive this afternoon 
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What’s the use of having smart cars if our roads are dumb?
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Indian university students build a solar powered autonomous bus.
I think this means that the virtual pedestrians will be safe while the autonomous vehicles are stopped at the autonomous traffic lights:
Why does everything get the “IoT” label these days?
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A somewhat concerning article regarding tricking autonomous vehicles.
Perhaps its to do with the move to take Direct Intelligence (Di for short) out of our every day living needs?
Previously we may have been more reliant on the I-Di-oT label? 
I wonder if Murphy’s law will still be applicable to AI and the operation of Autonomous Everything?
An article regarding Boston Dynamics robot developments.
Coming to a nightmare near you.
Now scientists have created self-producing lifelike material.
It just seems to keep getting more creepy.
Tesla is upgrading its self-driving technology though (probably for legal reasons) they’re formally still calling it “driver assist”.
and they’re building their own purpose-designed chip to do it:
It may also lead to self-aware beer that refuses to be imbibed when you have had too much: this is the fix for lock-out laws. They have got this far (not very far) by manipulating DNA from existing organisms not by creating anything from scratch. All of which has nothing to do with autonomous vehicles.
Why the sudden change of position? Was he trying to throw competitors off the scent, or has his own version of AI taken over his mind/thinking. I note here Tesla has abandoned a deal with NVidia the 3D graphics chip giant in favour of a Tesla designed AI chip!
Should we “Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid”?
Elon Musk has consistently warned against AI!
Musk has not been alone in his assessment that AI presents a substantial risk. Bill Gates has this to say!
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IIRC, Tesla has always referred to their technology as “driver assist”. Their marketing sometimes slips up, but that’s the official (legal) line. The driver’s manual supplied with every vehicle goes to great lengths to emphasise that there should be a driver behind the wheel at all times. There’s even an alarm that sounds if the driver takes their hands off the wheel for too long.
That said, “driver assist” also allows one to summon a vehicle from wherever it’s parked (with a mobile 'phone app). Obviously, there’d be nobody behind the wheel at that point. How they reconcile that, I don’t know.
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Perhaps because it has no passengers in it for that journey, Tesla might perceive there is no risk of injury to the owner/driver and passengers. 
Logic does not need to produce a reasonable or acceptable outcome? 
Missing parameters - everyone else! 
Hopefully the summoned Tesla does not park on your foot on arrival?
And does Musk equate this to his “summoning the demon” analogy?
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Hmmm … What about one of these? 
Last year, on average, each of Rio’s autonomous haul trucks operated an additional 1000 hours and at 15 per cent lower load and haul unit cost than conventional haul trucks.
A mine site is a comparatively controlled environment. A good place to develop technologies for broader application.
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