Everybody misses the point that this issue is all about forcing people to move into cramped Urban environments where the government can better provide services. Driverless vehicles in to some extent electric vehicles are really public transportation . You’re not going to own the batteries you’re going to lease them . And a flip of a switch will make refueling impossible where as you can make your own biofuel or trade for a substance like gasoline . This is about the end of personal transportation since electric vehicles and specially driverless vehicles will require constant network access monitoring and loss of privacy. Then those pesky small town people will have less and less influence until there aren’t any anymore.
As long as we're being ‘progressive’, I say we replace all politicians with robotics and electronics. No pensions, no vacations, no appearances on TV etc. We'll just have ‘representative’ electronics that are programmed in accordance with the electorate's wishes for that election cycle, and that will be in contact with the electorate electronically. If you vote for A, the electronics will vote for A in Congress etc. No vote flipping, no bait and switch.
We could even add personalities. We could have a robotic Al Sharpton that would say things like ‘no justice, no peace’, and take money/energy/whatever from other robots secretly. The possibilities are endless, and if we have elementary school children program them they will be smarter than the politicians of today.
To the contrary, you have the option of powering the vehicle from assorted sources, including solar/wind or whatever you can power a generator with. Yes, you will own the batteries. Maintenance is way better too.
Secondly, it will dismantle the complex energy production complex (gasoline) to a simple more centralized one (electrical energy producers).