Another prediction was these new cars would spark an obesity epidemic, given at times it didn't take as much energy to drive them.

You could argue that one has partially come true.

These anecdotes, and more, come from a report written by Curtis Cifuentes, an investment analyst at Platinum Asset Management and published in the fund manager's 2017 annual report.

Cifuentes specialises in the technology sector and his latest research focuses on some possible "direct and indirect impacts" of driverless cars, as well as a few social spin-offs that might play out when they eventually arrive.

There have been all sorts of warnings about what will happen when they do hit the road, but this report shows it's all really nothing new.

There were some big calls made back in the day about cars that needed a driver and there are some big calls now getting made about cars that don't. Just like 100 years ago, some will be correct, others not so – the trick is trying to pick the winners.

That's not easy, according to Platinum, but asking the right questions can help.

Ironically, to prove how nothing has really changed in more than 120 years, Cifuentes pointed to a report made in 1896 to the British Association for the Advancement of Science.


In it, a scientist said that one of the benefits of a horse-drawn carriage was that the driver could, to an extent, take it easy during the whole journey, safe in the knowledge that the horses really knew where they were doing and were they were going.

In contrast with the new cars of the day, the scientist warned that the drivers would now have to concentrate more and pay attention to what was going on around them.

As Cifuentes notes: "It's only taken us 100 years to get back to the level of autonomy that we gave up!"

One of the latest anecdotes about driverless cars, and how they are going to be disruptive to companies, focuses on LMG Holdings, the largest breathalyser manufacturer in the United States.

The company sells "interlock" devices that are automatically put on a car's ignition for people who have been convicted of drunken driving. It's been a good earner, but of course in the future they won't be needed.

Elsewhere, a chunk of money has also been spent on technology in cars that have alcohol-sensing start buttons and touch pads that will all be wasted when these driverless cars arrive.

It's been well documented that the adoption of driverless cars will leave a massive dent in the car insurance business. But the report by Cifuentes shows that it's harder to work out the potential second order and third order effects of self-driving cars.

For example, how will it impact on urban planning and real estate?


"We think that autonomous driving technology has the potential to be more than just an expensive up-sell opportunity at car dealers," says Cifuentes.

"It will reduce death and injury, change the insurance industry and eventually, through synergies with ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft, change the nature of personal transport," he adds.

Funny enough, there's a theory that if these cars are so cheap there might be too many of them on the road and they will cause all sorts of traffic jams.

The business landscape definitely won't be the same, but it might not change quite like how we think now.

For example, it might make sense not to be an investor in a traditional car manufacturer, but if consumers go from being a buyer of cars to a customer of the services that driverless cars can offer, then it might not be as bad as we all think.

There's no doubt that if these cars become common, "there might be huge changes to the jobs we do and even the very fabric of the cities we live in. There will be unpredictable second and third order effects that will surprise everyone," according to Platinum.

To illustrate one facet of the potential social and economic impact, Cifuentes notes that around 30,000 people die in car accidents every year in the United States, while around the world the number has been put at 1.2 million.

In the US alone, when car-related injuries are included, the number goes to 3.9 million and it can cost the economy as much as $US242 billion, according to the US Department of Transport.


That's around 1.6 per cent of GDP. So if driverless cars can reduce the number of injuries and fatal accidents, there's an enormous economic benefit right there.

It's worth noting humans are responsible for 94 per cent of all accidents, which means bad weather or mechanical mishaps don't really come into play.

Modelling by MunichRe implies these driverless cars will wipe out $US20 billion worth of insurance premiums in developed markets by 2020.

And while everyone talks about Apple and the smartphone market, and how that is changing businesses around the world, the car market, at around $US1.2 trillion is three times the size of the smartphone market.

"When one includes peripheral markets such as component suppliers, or including services revenue such as that from ride-sharing businesses, the revenue pool that is potentially ripe for disruption expands significantly," says Cifuentes.

Another reason why it might be to early to ditch the traditional carmakers is that for all the noise around Tesla, with a market cap of $US42 billion, which is roughly the same as Nissan, the company can still only make 50,000 cars a year. Nissan churned out 5.5 million cars in 2016.

"The incumbents are also aware of the threats and are ramping investments in autonomy, through strategic investments, such as GM into Lyft or through partnerships with technology providers such as Mobileye or Nvidia or direct R & D," Cifuentes says.

Ride sharing however means we probably won't need as many cars in the future and if the airline industry is any guide, where auto pilots can fly the planes, it means the fleets of these driverless cars can be smaller.


Another trend that has coincided with driverless cars has been the drop in the number of young people actually buying cars.

They don't seem to be as interested as their parents were in owning a car and maybe they use those smartphones more to keep in contact with each other.

Whatever the reason, driverless cars will probably extend the trend and that will be a big change to society.

The other changes will be around the price of oil; electric cars means a potential 45 per cent drop in the demand for oil, and how much space we allocate to our cars.

In the US there's around 1 billion parking spaces, four spaces for every car.

That's almost 17,000 square kilometres, or one quarter of Tasmania, set aside as a car park.

"In urban centres, accommodating cars for parking accounts for 30 per cent of land and floor space occupied," says Cifuentes.

If there are going to be more car-sharing services such as GoGet then you won't need the parking spaces you get now in the cities and maybe even the demise of the urban petrol station is not far away.

"It will be hard to predict the impact partly because the cities we live in are so diverse. It could go either way – LA streets are freed of their notorious congestion or conversely traffic gets worse because autonomous transport is cheap and plentiful" .