I agree, they should start small, and then steadily expand; pretty much the way Waymo is doing.

I'll believe they've sussed it when the number of Cybercabs on the road simultaneously is greater than the number of people Tesla could plausibly have hired to remotely babysit them; until then, there's always the possibility that they are doing the Mechanical Turk thing and their "full self-driving" cars are really "self-driving (supervised)". (It wouldn't be the first time; they've been caught pulling that trick with Optimus on multiple occasions)

If we assume there is meaningful competition between insurers, then any insurer that started charging "normal" drivers extravagant rates would start losing customers to its competitors who could easily undercut them on price. So the likely outcome would be that self-driving cars would get cheap insurance, and the rest of us would continue paying rates similar to what we pay now. In particular, the arrival of safe self-driving cars would presumably not result in human drivers having more accidents.

OTOH if there is not meaningful competition (e.g. due to a monopoly or oligopoly), then the insurance companies can charge anyone whatever price they like, because the only alternative to paying it would be to not drive a car. But that would be the case for both human-driven and self-driving cars.

You're only slightly exaggerating. In reality, the corporate overlords dream of printing piles of money and becoming vastly richer than they already are; monitoring and controlling the 'average' citizen is mainly a means to that end, rather than an end unto itself. A citizen that depends on your product to conduct his life is a citizen from which money can be regularly extracted!

Say that Chinese-made cars are banned from the USA, as described. What happens then? China licenses its auto technology to a European (or Mexican or etc) company, which then produces the same cars and sells those to the US, and the US manufacturers still have to either step up their game or get competed out of the market. The only way to avoid that reckoning would be to ban all foreign car imports entirely, which is probably where the Trump administration will start heading, sooner or later.

Yeah. The manufacturers haven't exactly been helpful. Also a "right to repair" and access to parts. I don't know why the military ever gave up on that one.

Sounds like capitalism must suck if it canâ(TM)t beat communism.

AI *is* extremely dangerous. The currently extant AIs are already sufficient to radically change our economy in unpredictable ways. We've barely started to see the changes that would be coming even if development stopped NOW.

That, however, doesn't mean there's a good answer. Perhaps a more powerful AI could solve the economic problems. The problem is "Even if you trust the AI, how can you trust the person who's using it to find the answers he wants?". And the more powerful the AI, the worse that problem becomes.

Actually, protecting the local car industry IS necessary for national security. I'm just not convinced that this is a method that would work. I suspect it would make the current problems worse.

I think it would also mean no cars. IIUC every car on the market has foreign-made components, and probably Chinese made components.

Re: Slave labor.
Check out "prison industries" on google. I don't know which country has a larger percentage of it's population doing slave labor, but both are doing it.

Well, I think the claim is that China is abusing a larger fraction of it's population. I don't know whether this claim is true or false, but I think that's what the claim is.

That's not fair when (I think) every country that makes cars subsidizes it's cars. The question is "What should you do about it?". Considering that the US also subsidizes it's car makers, the answer is not obvious, though it should certainly involve graded tariffs...tariffs adjusted to the difference between the rates of subsidy. The problem is "How do you count all the various indirect subsidies?". Also "How do you track changes in the rate of subsidies?".

Sorry, but you misunderstand that quote. Henry Ford was making the cheapest standard car that was any good...so he didn't put in "optional extras", like different colors. His cars were famous for quality, durability, and repairability...and they deserved their fame. But they sure weren't luxury models. And that quote is a statement that he wasn't aiming at the luxury market.

I don't know about Britain, but in California black walnut trees grow wild, but English Walnut trees need care and planting. (Usually they're grafted onto black walnut stock, because the trunks are too weak.)

Basically, you want your military vehicles to be built by someone who won't cut you off in case of a war. It extends from there, but that's the basis.