Back to the Model 3, I don’t understand why you would say the owner of a Model 3 would be immune to fuel costs. Have you checked your SDG&E bill lately? If you don’t have solar, I wouldn’t say you’re immune to fuel costs.
I would say autonomous cars would affect the commute more than an EV. With autonomous car, you can actually work while you’re “commuting”. Then, essentially, you’re no longer “commuting”, since you can start working as soon as you get into the car.
As for road noise, I think tire noise is much louder than the noise the engine make at ~2k RPM driving down the freeway. So, I don’t think EV would make that big of a difference.
You also have to keep in mind that EV today is only viable for a small group of people. It’s not suitable for 18-wheelers, worker trucks, poor people, people who live in older areas in a condo/apartment, etc. I think EV has a long long way to go to be suitable to replace majority of vehicles on the road. Unless there’s a breakthrough that would drastically decrease the cost of producing batteries and drastically increase the density of the battery and drastically reduce the charge time of the battery (20-30 min down to 2-3 minutes).
