In early February, The Washington Post published an op-ed by urbanist writer David Zipper asking the question, “What exactly is the point of self-driving cars?”
While this is an important question, this particular op-ed fails to answer it. The article vacillates from pessimism on the development of automated vehicles to pessimism on future operations, leading to a framing that centers on the worst of all possible worlds. What is missing from the piece is a dose of informed realism on ongoing automated vehicles development, how AV operations might scale in the future to benefit society, and the role of public
