Autonomous Cars Won't Just Change Driving, They'll Terraform Our Cities

We’re all thinking about autonomous vehicles (AVs) on the wrong scale. We’re picturing our current car, just with an “autopilot” switch. We’re imagining reading a book or taking a nap on our daily commute. That’s not the revolution. That’s just a feature.

The true revolution, as former Tesla Autopilot lead Andrej Karpathy recently put it, is that self-driving technology “will visibly terraform outdoor physical spaces.”

Think about how much of our urban landscape is built not for humans, but for parked cars.

Every street is lined with them. We build massive, ugly concrete garages. Every home, apartment complex, and shopping center dedicates vast, valuable real estate to simply storing 3,000-pound metal boxes that sit unused 95% of the time.

Now, imagine a city where autonomous “Cybercabs” or Waymo vehicles are the norm. You don’t own a car. You summon one. When it drops you off, it doesn’t park—it immediately goes to serve the next person.

Suddenly, the need for massive parking lots disappears. That multi-story garage at your office? It’s now prime real estate for apartments, a park, or a market. The parking spots lining every street? They become wider sidewalks, dedicated bike lanes, and outdoor cafes.

This isn’t a far-fetched dream. This is the logical end state of autonomy. The car completely reshaped our cities in the 20th century, building suburbs and highways. In the 21st, the autonomous car will reshape them again, dismantling the car-centric infrastructure and giving our cities back to the people who live in them.