Only comment I have is I don't see automated cars causing HUGE changes though: you'd still be moving mass along pre-defined routes along the ground, over dedicated infrastructure, at relatively low speeds. Sure your 1hr commute would be cut to 30 minutes, and you could read or eat or shave (or at least do these things easier) during that time, but that's hardly a HUGE change from now. Those transportation devices would still need to be stored somewhere when not in use (which would still be the majority of the time), and the infrastructure and the devices would still be major budget items. Sure there'd be less parking lots; I guess that'd be different.
Maybe we're both downers... More beer is a mood alterting experiment I shall attempt, now that you mention it.
A few possibilities.
Traffic deaths would go down dramatically.
Overall fuel efficiency would go up for many reasons, first cars which are interlinked could drive closer together and "train up" in a way. Second, cars are far more likely to not waste energy than humans, particularly if they connect to an overall grid in a city and can know when stoplights will turn, etc.
The total number of cars needed could drop dramatically if cars are all used similar to uber and "on demand."
Also, if cars are more like taxis, particularly for commuting, carpooling types of activities become much easier because you can easily pick someone else up with minimal impact on the overall commute time and have less vehicles on the road.
Commuting time would drop significantly, because overall traffic efficiency would skyrocket. Lack of need for human reaction time safety factors as well as increased efficiency on actual traffic routes themselves.
You could even potentially reduce the safety features of vehicles to make them lighter and more energy efficient. Right now cars are designed to keep their passengers safe from other drivers, which adds a lot of weight. If all human drivers are obsolete a lot of this weight could be reclaimed. Particularly since the need of trucks is nearly non-existent for most of their owners, which meant if all vehicles were autonomous the number of trucks in circulation would drop dramatically.
Overall commuting speed would almost assuredly be higher. Perhaps for intercountry trips the effect would be lower, but you could still increase speeds and decrease mileage dramatically. Being close behind another vehicle (particularly only a few feet) reduces drag significantly, which scales in a power relationship with speed, to the point you could easily increase your average speed while still decreasing overall fuel economy.
This sum total of the obvious implications to me would be pretty huge. And these are just the simplistic, immediate effects of having all automated cars.