Obviously, cars are essential. But here is short a list of completely unnecessary issues brought on by greed and industry:
* The health and societal cost of leaded gasoline and the industry resistance to transitioning to unleaded.
* The Automobile industry purchase and subsequent removal of train and light rail tracks in the United States.
* The Automobile industry resistance to requiring airbags.
* The oil industry and it's war against global warming science.
There are many more, these are just the ones off the top of my head.
Point is, it isn't the technology but the industry around the technology that is the issue. Cars are useful and essential just like the internet. But right now, we have a situation akin to the early automobile industry.
I hope that, with this technology, we can get some privacy laws/worker rights/better standards before we have another half-century before anything gets done about the Big Bad Corporate takeover of the Internet.