Your next car might drive itself.

你的下一辆汽车或许会是自动驾驶汽车。

The technology is essentially¹ here, Barack Obama told Wired magazine this month.

巴拉克.奥巴马(Barack Obama)本月向《连线》(Wired)杂志表示：这项技术已经基本成熟。

Robin² Chase, the transportation³ entrepreneur who co-founded Zipcar, reckons driverless cars are three-and-a-quarter years away.

交通运输企业家、Zipcar的联合创始人罗宾.蔡斯(Robin Chase)认为，无人驾驶汽车再有三年零三个月就会来临。

Yet we have barely begun to think about how they will revolutionise our lives, revamp our cities — and destroy tens of millions of jobs.

然而，我们几乎还没有开始考虑它们将如何革命性地改变我们的生活、我们的城市，以及摧毁数千万就业岗位。

After years of trials on city streets, driverless vehicles are now nearing the live phase.

在城市街道上试运行多年之后，无人驾驶汽车现在已快要进入实际应用阶段。

Last month, a driverless bus began carrying passengers through Lyon, France.

上月，法国里昂开始使用无人驾驶公交车运送乘客。

Most in the automobile⁵ industry think self-driving vehicles will be on the road by 2020 or before, says Richard Holman, head of foresight⁶ and trends at General Motors.

通用汽车(General Motors)的预见和趋势主管理查德.霍尔曼(Richard Holman)表示，大部分汽车业内人士认为无人驾驶汽车将在2020年乃至更早的某个时间上路。

Driverless cars will initially⁷ coexist with human-driven cars.

无人驾驶汽车最初会与人类驾驶的汽车共存。

But the first places where they will become dominant⁸ are dense⁹ urban areas — precisely¹⁰ the spots most damaged by the automobile age.

但无人驾驶汽车首先会在人口密集的城市地区占据主导地位——正是那些遭受汽车时代打击最为严重的地区。

This is a chance to have a do-over for cities, Chase told this month’s Autonomy conference in Paris.

在本月于巴黎召开的Autonomy大会上，蔡斯表示，这是城市从头来过的机会。

Many advanced cities are already reducing the role of cars.

许多发达城市已经削减了汽车的角色。

Driverless cars will hasten that process.

无人驾驶汽车将会加速这一过程。

Cities don’t want everyone to own their own driverless car.

城市不希望所有人都拥有自己的无人驾驶汽车。

That would prolong congestion¹¹, and isn’t necessary anyway.

那将会加剧拥堵，而且也没有必要。

A driverless car is the perfect cheap taxi — it can drop you at work, and then go off to collect somebody else.

无人驾驶汽车是完美的廉价出租车，它可以把你送到公司，然后再去接其他人。

If you still insist on driving your own car, cities will probably charge you for the privilege: motoring will become a luxury, like owning and flying your own plane.

如果你仍坚持开你自己的车，城市很可能会为这项特权向你收费：开车将成为一种奢侈，就像拥有和驾驶自己的飞机一样。

Driverless cars could allow cities to cut vehicle numbers by about 90 per cent while transporting the same number of people.

无人驾驶汽车可以让城市得以将汽车数量削减90%左右，同时运输的人数不变。

They will bring us enormous benefits:

无人驾驶汽车将带给我们极大的益处：

. Driverless cars will reduce accidents by around 90 per cent, predicts Pascal Demurger, director-general of French insurer MAIF.

. 法国保险公司MAIF总经理帕斯卡尔.德米尔热(Pascal Demurger)预计，无人驾驶汽车将让事故量下降90%左右。

That’s big — the annual death toll¹² on the world’s roads is about 1.2 million a year, or double the toll from armed conflict and homicides combined.

这非常了不起——全球每年有约120万人死于交通事故，两倍于死于武装冲突和凶杀的人数之和。

. Pollution and carbon emissions¹³ will drop, because urban driverless cars will be electric.

. 污染和碳排放将会下降，因为城市无人驾驶汽车将是电动的。

. The old, the disabled and teenagers will suddenly gain mobility¹⁴.

. 老年人、行动不便者和青少年将一下子能够方便地出行了。

. People will save fortunes by ditching their cars.

. 抛弃汽车将让人们省下一笔钱。

The average cost of owning a car in Europe is about EURO6,000 a year, says Chase.

蔡斯表示，在欧洲，拥有一辆汽车的平均成本是每年6000欧元左右。

If you think personal cars will survive as status symbols, remember that horses were once status symbols.

如果你认为私家车将作为地位的象征继续存在，那么别忘记，马也曾经是地位的象征。

. Driverless cars will hardly ever need to park, and certainly not in city centres.

. 无人驾驶汽车几乎从来不需要停放，而且肯定不需要在市中心停放。

Cities can therefore convert parking spaces — where many cars now sit for the vast majority of their lives — into bike lanes or parks.

因此，城市可以将停车场——现在许多汽车在大部分使用期限里都是呆在停车场里——改造为自行车道或公园。

. Congestion will diminish, as driverless cars can drive in dense packs, won’t get lost and won’t have to circle around looking for parking.

. 交通拥堵将减少，因为无人驾驶汽车可以更密集地行驶，不会迷路，也不用转着圈寻找停车位。

. Police will no longer pull over black drivers — or indeed any drivers.

. 警方不会再让黑人司机靠边停车，实际上他们不会再让任何司机靠边停车。

. Once driverless cars spread beyond urban centres, the tedium¹⁵ of commutes¹⁶ will go.

. 一旦无人驾驶汽车推广至城市中心以外，通勤将不再乏味。

You can use your car for eating, working, sleeping, kissing, Carlo Ratti, head of MIT’s Senseable City Lab, told the Autonomy conference.

麻省理工学院智慧城市实验室(MIT Senseable City Lab)负责人卡洛.拉蒂(Carlo Ratti)表示：你可以在车上吃饭、工作、睡觉和接吻。

On the other hand, driverless cars will bring catastrophe¹⁷.

另一方面，无人驾驶汽车将会带来灾难。

The best thing about the automobile age was that it employed tens of millions of people to make, market, insure and drive vehicles.

汽车时代最大的好处是，它为数千万人提供了汽车制造、营销、保险和驾驶方面的就业机会。

Over the next 20 years, the mostly low-skilled men who now drive trucks, taxis and buses will see their jobs decimated.

在未来20年，现在开卡车、出租车和公交车的那些人（大部分为低技能劳动者）将失去饭碗。

Instead of taxi drivers setting Uber cars on fire, we could see taxi and Uber drivers get together to set driverless cars on fire.

我们可能会看到出租车和优步(Uber)司机们联合起来放火焚烧无人驾驶汽车，而不是出租车司机烧优步汽车。

If you thought Donald Trump¹⁸ was bad, wait for the next wave of male losers from modernity.

如果你认为唐纳德.特朗普(Donald Trump)很糟糕，那么等着看下一波现代化浪潮带来的男性输家吧。

Or think of insurers, many of whom now get about half their revenues from automobile insurance.

或者想想保险公司吧，许多保险公司现在一半收入来自汽车保险业务。

Warren Buffett, whose company Berkshire Hathaway owns the auto⁴ insurers Geico, says that anything that sharply reduces traffic accidents would be wonderful.

沃伦.巴菲特(Warren Buffett)表示，任何大幅降低交通事故的事情都将是极好的。

But we would not be holding a party at our insurance company.

但我们不会在我们的保险公司开派对来庆祝。

Demurger muses¹⁹, We could almost become an insurer without insurance.

德米尔热沉吟道，我们可能几乎会成为没有保险的保险公司。

Governments and cities, too, will lose revenues from parking, speeding fines and petrol taxes.

政府和城市也将失去停车、超速罚款和汽油税的收入。

Carmakers are especially scared.

汽车制造商尤其感到惊恐。

The few cars of the future might be made by tech companies such as Apple, Baidu and Google.

未来的少数几种汽车可能由苹果(Apple)、百度(Baidu)和谷歌(Google)等科技公司制造。

Imagine the impact on Germany, where the automotive sector²⁰ is the largest industry.

想想对德国的影响吧——汽车业是德国规模最大的行业。

There may be a clash ahead between mostly European car companies and American tech companies.

汽车公司（大多为欧洲公司）和美国科技公司将来可能发生冲突。

The carmakers want people to keep buying and driving their own cars, albeit²¹ with new technological²² aids.

汽车制造商希望人们继续购买和驾驶自己的汽车（虽然是在新技术的辅助下）。

By contrast, the tech companies will lobby governments to favour driverless cars.

相反，科技公司将会游说政府偏向无人驾驶汽车。

Dramatic change is coming, but governments have barely begun thinking about it.

巨大的变化即将来临，但各国政府几乎还没有开始考虑这些事情。

Obama is a rare politician even to have mentioned self-driving cars.

奥巴马曾提及自动驾驶汽车，这在政客当中已经是比较罕见的了。

Only 6 per cent of the biggest US cities have factored them into their long-term planning.

在美国最大的城市当中，只有6%的城市将自动驾驶汽车考虑到了长期规划中。

Driverless cars could arrive by 2020, but most mayors and transport ministers are preoccupied²³ with next week.

到2020年，无人驾驶汽车就可能上路，但大多数市长和交通部长满脑子想的还是下周的事情。

A decade ago hardly anyone saw the smartphone coming.

十年前，几乎没有人预见到智能手机的来临。

It has brought an epidemic²⁴ of mass addiction²⁵.

如今，智能手机瘾大规模流行。

Let’s hope we do a better job of handling the driverless car.

希望我们在应对无人驾驶汽车方面做得更好一些吧。