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Interesting stuff, but I think widely off the mark in timing regarding the electric and autonomous cars... I think it'll be way more progressive and land softer...
Electric cars have a place but won't work everywhere for a long long time - like far from big cities with less support infrastructure... More solar at home to power your car, yes, I'm already doing that now and it works for me. But all those investments required in support infrastructure are not likely to happen quickly - just look at the state of our current infrastructure - we struggle to maintain what we have and those predictions imply radical upgrades...
All those batteries are made from relatively rare and dirty materials, and don't recycle well, we might need new battery tech that is cleaner before this goes forward - meantime the gas engine gets cleaner and more frugal all the time...
The grid is not ready to deal with a mega influx of daytime solar and redistribute this at night (would need mega storage), or the variations on solar production due to weather, or rely on clean energy for cold snaps.. most grids are not all that interconnected from location to location, let alone from state to state... Hell the grid needs to be brought into the 20th century before we go 21st, and while we're at it let's harden it from hackers a little...
No more coal? There's still a lot of coal plants because they can fire up quicker than others to meet fluctuating energy needs, and the nuclear options which would supply enough power are falling out of favor with the public/politicians (not saying it's a good think, I believe nuclear is the only rational way to meet our electricity needs combined with clean energy).
The driveless cars are not yet ready but when they do, our roads are not ready to accommodate them, there's a lack of political will to even fix our roads and bridges and those things require perfect lanes / lines / cues that are not there... The legal framework is still a mystery as well, if the car kills a pedestrian to save you or vice versa, who gets sued ?
Insurance? They will find a way to get $ from us, trust me... Some of those predictions are valid and interesting but I think overall it won't be as quick as stated. Then again I did not see the car automation develop so fast in the last 3 years either..
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