Soon, automakers might add an “ecology” routing option that minimizes the amount of fuel used between two points, taking into account altitude as well as distance and traffic conditions—since hills require more fuel than flat roads. Cars with “multiple personalities,” which allow drivers to change performance, are now common. But new systems might be able to read a car’s location and automatically switch it to lower-performance profiles in cities like London, whose congestion charges vary based on vehicle emissions.

The holy grail, of course, is letting drivers remove themselves from the equation—and that could have a big impact on safety, traffic, and the environment. Collectively, autonomous vehicles could modulate the slowdowns and clustering that cause traffic jams. They could reduce total emissions, just as cruise control saves fuel by varying engine speed more precisely than a driver can. And self-driving cars could increase road capacity by traveling much closer together. Remember the old driver-education saying, “one car length for every 10 miles per hour of speed”? Once human reaction times no longer have to be accounted for, cars could safely travel just 20 feet apart at 70 miles per hour.

Tests are gearing up in the U.S., Europe, and Japan to equip groups of a few hundred cars with communications gear that lets them “speak among themselves,” as well as with the roadside infrastructure (so a stoplight can identify itself, for example) to avoid collisions. But converting or replacing the world’s 700 million vehicles—soon to soar beyond a billion—will take a generation. And ironically, the regions where self-aware cars could make the most difference are those that can least afford them. The emerging auto markets of China and India include millions of first-time drivers—adults who didn’t absorb the process of driving by watching their parents, as many Americans did.

The soaring injury and death rates in those emerging markets, says Global Insight’s Gott, “are the biggest social challenge the industry faces—but right now, this is a technology for the rich.” And just like psychotherapy, self-awareness costs money.