 So self-driving cars are supposed to be right around the corner, right? Self-driving car technology that sounded like science fiction just a couple of years ago is now a reality. Well, not exactly. Every year at CES in Detroit, automakers flock to show us all of their cool, weird self-driving car concepts. And this year wasn't any different. We saw weird cars from Mercedes, from Nissan, from Toyota. And while the cars are definitely getting smarter and the technology is undoubtedly getting better and better, the day when you'll be able to buy one of these cars or even ride in one, it's a lot farther out than you think. So, it's 2018. Where are we in the world of self-driving cars? The big takeaway from CES in Detroit was that automakers have stopped talking about demonstrating the technology or how good the technology is and started talking about how this technology is going to be used and how it's going to make them money. And that's a big deal. But it might lead people to think that they're going to start seeing driverless cars rolling down Main Street any day now. They're going to be very expensive initially, especially vehicles that have really robust systems with redundant computing systems, full sensor suites of camera, radar and LIDAR, and all the other features that are going to be part of these vehicles. So there's the cost factor. And then there's also concerns about liability with the vehicles. If something goes wrong, and it almost certainly will, I mean, we've already just seen the first lawsuit filed against a company testing one of these in San Francisco. So there's the liability concerns. And then longer term, if you look at the traditional model of a manufacturer who sells a car to a consumer or sells it to a dealer who sells it to a consumer, and then they're basically done with it, except for selling service parts. That's going to change. And we've already seen that happen with Tesla with doing over-the-air software updates. That's going to be happening with all of these vehicles going forward. And the whole model of support for these vehicles is going to shift to one of basically lifetime support for the vehicles, because they are going to require software updates and particularly security updates. And if you are just selling the vehicle and getting revenue for it one time, then it's hard to work out how are you going to pay for that ongoing support of the vehicle. A quick glance at the show floor here should be a huge wake-up call to anyone who thinks that this shift to autonomous cars isn't going to be incredibly messy. It's SUVs and trucks and crossovers, as far as the eye can see. Americans are still addicted to giant gas guzzlers, and who can blame them? Gas prices are super low right now. I mean, car companies are talking about things like mobility and smart cities and autonomous cars, but it's the Ford F-150s and the Chevy Silverados that make the money. So I guess the silver lining to the reality that we live in today, where trucks and SUVs dominate our car culture, is that car companies then take those profits from these vehicles and pump them into mobility projects for autonomous cars and connected cars, which is a good thing. So in 2019, we're going to start to see some of these projects move into more cities. And then by 2020, we're going to start seeing cars without steering wheels or pedals hit the road, fully driverless cars, and that's going to be a really, really big deal. But again, it's important not to get ahead of ourselves. It's probably going to be primarily urban areas where there's a high density of travelers. San Francisco will almost certainly be one of the first markets, especially for GM. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Phoenix area be one of Waymo's first markets. So those sorts of environments where you've got a high density of ridership that can operate both point to point and first mile, last mile services for riders, and then also start to incorporate some other services that can be used with these vehicles. Building these business models, bringing in other partners to utilize these vehicles when they're not carrying passengers, you want them doing some sort of revenue generating work. So Toyota announced their e-palette alliance. Ford is partnering with Domino's, Postmates, and Lyft, and we'll probably see other similar announcements coming from the other companies over the next few months so that the vehicles are always doing something productive and hopefully revenue generating. So meanwhile, while that's happening, the cars that we buy and drive every day are about to get crazy smart. I'm thinking Tesla with Autopilot or Cadillac with Super Cruise, these highly automated driver assist systems that basically let people take their hands off the wheel and their feet off the pedal, and the cars for all intents and purposes drive themselves. Now this is going to help pave the way to fully driverless cars. The idea being that as we're driving these really smart cars, we're going to get more comfortable with turning over control to our vehicles. And that's going to help us get to a point where, hey, it's okay to drive in a completely driverless car because I feel comfortable in this car drive itself. Now these are systems that are only available in pretty high end luxury vehicles. And the hope is that eventually they'll start to make their way into more affordable mass market vehicles, or else it's only really going to be available to rich people and that would suck. Cars are an integral part of our society, but they're also really dangerous. And it doesn't hurt to approach this whole technological shift a little bit more conservatively. Look, I like self-driving cars as much as anybody else. The idea of less traffic, fewer deaths, and less congestion is, I think, a great idea. But this is still a long ways away. Even if we're just now starting to see what this huge technology is going to look like. Yeah, I was just looking for a volume button. Could we turn it down a little bit? No, down. We're just going to try to shoot a video right here. And we just want to maybe look a little quiet for a sec, if that's at all possible.