Your next car might drive itself. 你的下一辆汽车也许不会是自动驾驶汽车。The technology is essentially here, Barack Obama told Wired magazine this month. 巴拉克.奥巴马(Barack Obama)本月向《连线》(Wired)杂志回应：这项技术早已基本成熟期。Robin Chase, the transportation entrepreneur who co-founded Zipcar, reckons driverless cars are three-and-a-quarter years away. 交通运输企业家、Zipcar的牵头创始人罗宾.蔡斯(Robin Chase)指出，无人驾驶汽车再有三年零三个月就不会到来。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，我们完全还没开始考虑到它们将如何革命性地转变我们的生活、我们的城市，以及毁坏数千万低收入岗位。

After years of trials on city streets, driverless vehicles are now nearing the live phase. 在城市街道上试运营多年之后，无人驾驶汽车现在已将要转入实际应用于阶段。Last month, a driverless bus began carrying passengers through Lyon, France. 上月，法国里昂开始用于无人驾驶公交车载运乘客。Most in the automobile industry think self-driving vehicles will be on the road by 2020 or before, says Richard Holman, head of foresight and trends at General Motors.通用汽车(General Motors)的意识到和趋势主管理查德.霍尔曼(Richard Holman)回应，大部分汽车业内人士指出无人驾驶汽车将在2020年乃至早的某个时间上路。

Driverless cars will initially coexist with human-driven cars. 无人驾驶汽车最初不会与人类驾驶员的汽车并存。But the first places where they will become dominant are dense urban areas — precisely the spots most damaged by the automobile age. 但无人驾驶汽车首先不会在人口密集的城市地区占有主导地位——正是那些遭到汽车时代压制尤为相当严重的地区。This is a chance to have a do-over for cities, Chase told this month’s Autonomy conference in Paris. 在本月于巴黎开会的Autonomy大会上，蔡斯回应，这是城市从头来过的机会。

Many advanced cities are already reducing the role of cars. 许多繁盛城市早已缩减了汽车的角色。Driverless cars will hasten that process.无人驾驶汽车将不会加快这一过程。

Cities don’t want everyone to own their own driverless car. 城市不期望所有人都享有自己的无人驾驶汽车。That would prolong congestion, and isn’t necessary anyway. 那将不会激化交通堵塞，而且也没适当。A driverless car is the perfect cheap taxi — it can drop you at work, and then go off to collect somebody else. 无人驾驶汽车是极致的廉价出租车，它可以把你送往公司，然后再行去相接其他人。

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. 如果你仍坚决进你自己的车，城市很可能会为这项特权向你收费：驾车将沦为一种奢华，就像享有和驾驶员自己的飞机一样。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以求将汽车数量缩减90%左右，同时运输的人数恒定。They will bring us enormous benefits:无人驾驶汽车将带来我们很大的益处：. 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上升90%左右。

That’s big — the annual death toll on the world’s roads is about 1.2 million a year, or double the toll from armed conflict and homicides combined.这十分真是——全球每年有大约120万人杀于交通事故，两倍于病死武装冲突和凶杀案的人数之和。. Pollution and carbon emissions will drop, because urban driverless cars will be electric.. 污染和碳排放将不会上升，因为城市无人驾驶汽车将是电动的。. The old, the disabled and teenagers will suddenly gain mobility.. 老年人、行动不便者和青少年将一下子需要便利地上下班了。. People will save fortunes by ditching their cars. . 舍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. 蔡斯回应，在欧洲，享有一辆汽车的平均值成本是每年6000欧元左右。If you think personal cars will survive as status symbols, remember that horses were once status symbols.如果你指出私家车将作为地位的象征物之后不存在，那么别忘记，马也曾多次是地位的象征物。

. Driverless cars will hardly ever need to park, and certainly not in city centres. . 无人驾驶汽车完全从不必须停放在，而且认同不必须在市中心停放在。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用于期限里都是睡在停车场里——改建为自行车道或公园。. 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.. 交通拥堵将增加，因为无人驾驶汽车可以更加密集地行经，会迷路，也不必并转着圈找寻停车位。

. Police will no longer pull over black drivers — or indeed any drivers.. 警方会再行让黑人司机靠边行驶，实质上他们会再行让任何司机靠边行驶。. Once driverless cars spread beyond urban centres, the tedium of commutes will go. . 一旦无人驾驶汽车推展至城市中心以外，通勤将仍然无趣。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)回应：你可以在车上睡觉、工作、睡和亲吻。

On the other hand, driverless cars will bring catastrophe. 另一方面，无人驾驶汽车将不会带给灾难。The best thing about the automobile age was that it employed tens of millions of people to make, market, insure and drive vehicles. 汽车时代仅次于的益处是，它为数千万人获取了汽车生产、营销、保险和驾驶员方面的就业机会。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，现在进卡车、出租车和公交车的那些人（大部分为较低技能劳动者）将丧失饭碗。

Instead of taxi drivers setting Uber cars on fire, we could see taxi and Uber drivers get together to set driverless cars on fire. 我们可能会看见出租车和优步(Uber)司机们牵头一起纵火烧毁无人驾驶汽车，而不是出租车司机火烧优步汽车。If you thought Donald Trump was bad, wait for the next wave of male losers from modernity.如果你指出唐纳德.特朗普(Donald Trump)很差劲，那么等着看下一波现代化浪潮带给的男性输家吧。Or think of insurers, many of whom now get about half their revenues from automobile insurance. 或者看看保险公司吧，许多保险公司现在一半收益来自汽车保险业务。Warren Buffett, whose company Berkshire Hathaway owns the auto insurers Geico, says that anything that sharply reduces traffic accidents would be wonderful. 沃伦.巴菲特(Warren Buffett)回应，任何大幅度减少交通事故的事情都将是极佳的。

But we would not be holding a party at our insurance company. 但我们会在我们的保险公司进舞会来庆典。Demurger muses, We could almost become an insurer without insurance. 德米尔热沉吟道，我们有可能完全不会沦为没保险的保险公司。

Governments and cities, too, will lose revenues from parking, speeding fines and petrol taxes.政府和城市也将丧失行驶、肇事罚款和汽油税的收益。Carmakers are especially scared. 汽车制造商特别是在深感惊慌。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有可能由苹果(Apple)、百度(Baidu)和谷歌(Google)等科技公司生产。

Imagine the impact on Germany, where the automotive sector is the largest industry.看看对德国的影响吧——汽车业是德国规模仅次于的行业。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有可能发生冲突。The carmakers want people to keep buying and driving their own cars, albeit with new technological aids. 汽车制造商期望人们之后出售和驾驶员自己的汽车（虽然是在新技术的辅助下）。

By contrast, the tech companies will lobby governments to favour driverless cars.忽略，科技公司将不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. 极大的变化即将来临，但各国政府完全还没开始考虑到这些事情。Obama is a rare politician even to have mentioned self-driving cars. 奥巴马曾提到自动驾驶汽车，这在政客当中早已是较为少见的了。

Only 6 per cent of the biggest US cities have factored them into their long-term planning. 在美国仅次于的城市当中，只有6%的城市将自动驾驶汽车考虑到了长年规划中。Driverless cars could arrive by 2020, but most mayors and transport ministers are preoccupied with next week.到2020年，无人驾驶汽车就有可能上路，但大多数市长和交通部长满脑子想要的还是下周的事情。A decade ago hardly anyone saw the smartphone coming. 十年前，完全没有人预见智能手机的到来。

It has brought an epidemic of mass addiction. 如今，智能手机瘾大规模风行。Let’s hope we do a better job of handling the driverless car.期望我们在应付无人驾驶汽车方面做到得更佳一些吧。

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