The effects of making almost all transport autonomous and electric seem under-discussed.

Consider what it will be like when every step from the factory, warehouse, or kitchen to your front door is both electric and autonomous. It will be like the change from dial-up to broadband but for moving grams instead of bits. This would make a big difference to travel, shopping, and business-to-business trade. As in the case of internet speeds it's not just that we'll do the same things a bit faster. Instead a million projects, jobs, and companies that weren't realistic are suddenly viable. It's Jevons paradox applied to transport: When we do it more efficiently, we'll do more of it, not less. This could be the biggest real change to our material wealth over the next decade or two. It will also change how locations are priced, because being near something will be less important (or more accurately, the definition of "near enough" will change by a large factor). At first, ordering and receiving almost anything will be faster and cheaper (for the delivery aspect of it) than ordering takeaway is today. The products themselves will also be cheaper due to reducing the wholesale transport costs that are built into everything you buy. After that, travel will become cheap, too, which po