It's more likely to be cranked down though, because that's more efficient and people might be less frustrated with slow driving if they can kill time on their phones during the drive.
The improvements in traffic flow gained through full automation may even offset the decreased speed limits.
Or full automation might increase the number of vehicles and exacerbate the problem. (On the assumption that the vastly reduced cost of fielding driveless vehicles could result in many more commercial vehicles on the road.)
But automation can also increase vehicle density: "Stop and go" traffic is way more efficient when it's not groggy humans doing the stopping and going.
I'm not sure about that. Keeping the cars closer together would suggest more abrupt acceleration and braking to such to avoid space being created as the car ahead accelerates from a stop. Given these accelerations will not be initiated by the driver, they will come as a surprise and thus be more jarring. I imagine that might result in autodrives that accelerate/brake more slowly, leaving greater distances between cars in stop=and-go environs. And I cannot see autodrives leaving much less room between cars while in steady motion or stopped. Humans are pretty good at tailgating.
At least in theory with proper communication channels between vehicles, vehicles could alter their speed just enough to make space for merging traffic or to allow a vehicle to turn. In that way nobody ever actually stops or starts, they just become slightly slower or slightly quicker, which should be much less jarring.
I think the key is that computer controlled vehicles could synchronize their stopping and starting. You wouldn't have to wait for the few feet moved by the car in front to bubble down the line as drivers notice the extra space. Instead, all stopped cars could coordinate to advance simultaneously.
You wouldn't even have to explicitly sync them; it'll take just few milliseconds for a self-driving car to notice another car is beginning to accelerate. Machines can keep precise control to the level simply unavailable to and unperceivable by humans.
s/kill time/do something useful/, like reading books, working, having fun, sleeping. Time spent driving where a "self-driving" alternative is available is absolutely wasted.
Kill time? Regardless of who is driving, time spend sitting the car is time spend away from family/pets/work/food/bathrooms and everything else important.
Don't worry, Tesla model S comes with a bathroom, a car office, a mini kitchen and a petting zoo
So Telsa is branching out into RVs? I guess that would be the logical synergy of telsa performance cars and tesla wall-mounted battery packs.
That won't work for all the people who'll suffer car sickness when they spend time focusing on their phone while in a vehicle. Intermittent messaging is OK for most people but have you tried reading a book as a passenger? We might find that most people have to look out the windows so often that they can't get much productive work done.
I used to have car sickness as a kid. I recall some of it being caused by vibrations made by the engine. The smell of gasoline was also vomit-inducing for me. Both of those issues are solved by electric cars.