Reality check: Automated vehicles will change our lives and our cities — hopefully for the better — by reducing traffic fatalities and making it easier to move from A to B.

• But it'll be decades before they arrive in significant numbers, and when they do, they'll be confined to cities, catering to commuters, tourists and urban dwellers.

What's happening: Taking a realistic look at the industry, most experts say...

• The first automated semi-trucks on highways could arrive in the next few years.
• Urban delivery vehicles, and then robotaxis, could arrive next. But, they will be confined to certain neighborhoods and limited to good driving conditions.
• Widespread deployment is many years away.
• Meantime, the rest of us will still be driving — though our cars will make it easier with highway-assistance features like Tesla Autopilot or Cadillac Super Cruise.

Key stat: Americans spend nearly an hour each day behind the wheel, traveling 220 miles per week in 2017, according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

• If it feels like you're driving more, it's true: compared to 2014, U.S. drivers spend an additional 20 minutes driving each week.
• As many of us know, commuting can be a nightmare.

But "commuting is not driving," argues McKeel Hagerty, CEO of Hagerty, which insures collector cars and boats and who will forever be a driver. "It's almost a different act."

"Never Stop Driving," a book for which Hagerty wrote the epilogue, is an antidote for the autonomous era.

• It celebrates cars and culture — everything from collecting and restoring old cars to racing and car clubs.
• "It's fun to put away the phone, clear your head, and enjoy a 'whole person' experience rather than being digitally distracted," Hagerty tells Axios.
• Cars have their own social network, after all, as this week's Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance reminds us.

Between the lines: Digital music didn't kill vinyl records, and automation won't kill driving, Hagerty says.

• "Cars have been around for 120 years, and they didn’t make horses go extinct. They just took them out of city centers."

Speaking of "Never Stop Driving," the book's stunning photos alone will stir your desire to go out for a ride.

Details: One of my favorite chapters is called "My Last Drive."

• It's loosely modeled after a chef's parlor game called "The Last Meal," in which cooks discuss the ideal menu for their final dining experiences.
• The authors asked some notable car enthusiasts including Jay Leno, Mario Andretti and Patrick Dempsey to describe their perfect final time behind the wheel — where would they go, in what vehicle and with whom? It's a fun thought exercise.

My thought bubble: My final drive would be in a red Mazda Miata, with the top down, and my husband by my side. It would have to be along the water somewhere — perhaps M-22 along the gorgeous coast of Lake Michigan or California's Pacific Coast Highway.

• Better yet, I'd rather go somewhere I've never been. Just press the accelerator and go. Final destination? Who cares?

What's new: The UX hybrid has some nifty superpowers that allow it to see into the future to maximize efficiency — a skill Lexus claims is an industry first.

How it works: Per Lexus, the car can optimize charging and discharging of the hybrid battery by working with the navigation system and the driver's habits.

• Typically, a hybrid draws energy from the battery when accelerating.
• When braking or coasting, wasted energy is captured and stored, earning power for future driving.
• When coasting on a long, downhill stretch of road, a full charge could be reached partway down the hill; any additional regenerated energy would be wasted.
• The UX avoids this by calculating when a long downhill stretch lies ahead, and then relying more heavily on battery-only driving to reduce the state of charge and better accept that regeneration opportunity.
• The result: a fuel economy of 39 mpg.

Plus, safety tech is standard on the UX, including adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist, and front- and rear-collision mitigation systems.

My thought bubble: While impressed by the car's smarts and focus on safety, I think the UX is too cramped and its infotainment system too complicated to get me to fork over $40,000.

Between the lines: GM believes both technologies are approaching a tipping point and hopes they will propel it to the forefront of a massive industry shift toward shared, self-driving electric cars.

• "The only way to lead in either one is to go heavy and hard in both of them," said Doug Parks, GM VP for autonomous and electric vehicle programs.

The big picture: Automakers are split on the path to electrification, the Wall Street Journal reports.

• Toyota and Ford are rolling out more hybrid gas-electric models as part of a gradual shift toward fully electric cars. They are both heavily invested in hybrid tech.
• GM and Volkswagen see no need for hybrids as a technology bridge and are concentrating instead on all-electric models. They also need to defend their strong positions in China, where they face government mandates to sell more zero-emissions vehicles.

What they're saying: The companies' views on self-driving technology are also influencing their strategies toward electrification.

GM says all-electric autonomous cars have an advantage over hybrid- and gasoline-powered ones.

• They're ideal for dense cities that need solutions for congestion and pollution.
• AVs require a lot of electrical power to run their advanced sensing and computer hardware.
• An all-electric AV is more responsive so it can make decisions and complete maneuvers — like navigating around a double-parked car — more quickly.

Ford sees practical issues that favor hybrid powertrains for AVs for the time being.

• Building the necessary charging infrastructure will add to the already capital-intensive challenge of developing AV technology and operations.
• Until battery technology improves, an AV's power-hungry computers (along with air conditioning and entertainment systems) will deplete more than half the range of a battery-electric vehicle.
• If cars are sitting on chargers, they aren't making money. 
• Fast-charging is needed to run an AV fleet, but Ford says repeated use will degrade the battery's lifespan. (GM says this isn't a concern.)

The bottom line: "We all want to transition to BEVs eventually, but we also need to find the right balance that will help develop a profitable, viable business model," said Sherif Marakby, president and CEO of Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC.