Fast Future’s Maria Romero predicts a major shift in the nature of auto repair, saying, “With less to maintain and AI monitoring the car’s performance constantly, less time and money would be necessary for maintenance. Physical repair shops would be rare and centralized. AI-to-AI online assisting would be the norm. A specialized self-driving repair fleet would attend major cases wherever the vehicle is at.”

Aaron Steinfeld, associate professor at Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, notes that these sorts of advancements are already happening. “I think there will be increased attention to software maintenance as vehicles become more electric and have more advanced driver assistance and safety systems,” said professor Steinfeld. “The question is whether software maintenance will be done by local shops or through over-the-air updates. Tesla is an example of the latter.”