Politapocalypse (U.S. Politics Megathread)

Once again, a company, built around the hottest tech in the industry, stole the spotlight at CES. This time, though , the product was not a smartphone, and the company was not Apple. For my money the most interesting news of last week came from a most surprising source: General Motors.

First up was the news that the century-old American car maker was investing $500 million in ride-sharing startup Lyft. Then, a few days later, the company formally introduced the Chevrolet Bolt, a (relatively-speaking) no-frills electric car that promises to go 200 miles on a charge for about $30,000. Perhaps it was the company in question, or simply the timing, but it reinforced the sense that fundamental change is coming to the world of transportation.

What is interesting, though, is that while change is certainly coming, it is coming on multiple axes: The Lyft news is about the secular shift from individually owned-and-operated automobiles to transportation-as-a-service, while the Chevrolet Bolt is about how the cars themselves are made. Meanwhile, Google, Uber, Tesla, and others are working on obviating the need for a driver at all. To put it another way, when it comes to questioning the future of transportation, the “What?”, “How?”, and “Where?” are all in play.

THE FUTURE IS HERE?
It’s easy to predict a future where all of these trends coalesce: electrically-powered self-driving cars, summoned from our smartphones, take us where we need to go with plenty of time to finally beat Candy Crush. After all, the trends all reinforce each other:

The simpler drivetrain of an electric vehicle rearranges what matters when it comes to building a car: the engineering that matters is more software and less mechanical, opening the door to software companies that are vastly more suited to developing self-driving technology
Electrical vehicles have (relative to gas-powered cars) higher fixed costs but lower marginal costs. This is a natural fit with ride sharing services focused on reducing the average cost per ride. Range is a concern, but a car with an exchangeable battery based out of a central depot (much more viable for a transportation company than an individual) could work well

Similarly, self-driving cars remove the largest cost from ride-sharing services: the driver. This has import beyond any one ride in question: the big prize is consumers giving up cars completely, which would result in ride-sharing utilization increasing exponentially
So it’s set then. Welcome to our carless future.

EDIT: Maybe another way of asking is to say that if the millionaire should pay more because he benefits more from American System vis-a-vis the Government, is it logical to say that if we have more government, we would have more Millionaires? Because that would also mean that with less government, the mother of 2 suffers more?

If not, then why?

HDDJ... I think your mistaken. Our cities/towns were not built around cars.

The old ones were built around Horses and wagons. The Automobile was made to replace the the Horse and all the labor it took to keep a horse. Bicycles were also invented as a better thing than a horse. The first push to pave roads was so that bicycles could haul ass, around town. Out west the automobile really got going because it is dry, in Southern California, one could follow hard packed dirt roads all over the place.... that's why LA grew up spread out.

You'll probably be waiting for a long time. Electric cars and self-driving cars are swell and all. But until there's innovation or legislation that makes owning gas-powered vehicles less desirable, little is going to change.

Can you answer it within your frame of political thought using a language that isn't conservative and media-centric? I'll do my best to keep up.