DaveL17 wrote:It's an interesting question--and surely smarter people than me have worked it out--but I can't make the math work.
If there were to be a self-driving mandate it would seem to me to be oppressively expensive. Governments would need to recoup taxes and fees on tags, stickers, inspections, and fuel (and whatnot). Most people probably wouldn't be able to afford their own self-driving cars, so that would, out of necessity, lead to be pools. Pools means that you would need fewer vehicles per capita. Fewer vehicles means fewer mechanics, and car washes and parking lots and other infrastructure to support them. Add mandatory EV on top of that and you lose the infrastructure to support ICE (collection, refinery, distribution and sales). Add to that: delivery of goods--are we to have electric trucks and freight trains? Snow plows? Bulldozers? What do you do with the billion non self-driving vehicles on the road now? You'd need to supplement the electric grid to support it all. What about all the people put out of work? The whole thing seems to collapse in on itself on the economics alone. If it's to work, I think it needs to happen organically over time.
Don't get me wrong, I don't worship at the altar of ICE (okay, maybe I do a little bit) and EV in many respects is vastly superior. I just don't see a mandate happening in the U.S. until we're about to run out of dinosaurs. Otherwise, I think the economy would implode.
The issue that will make you change will be your own economics. In 10 to 12 years almost all cars will be electric and most people won't own a car. You may own an electric automated work vehicle, but gas engines are already on their way out.