This talk will offer a novel method to identify the expected impacts of automated vehicles. New insights into the policy implications of this emerging technology can be gained by reading a social history of the elevator’s transition from manual operation to push-button autonomy. The consequences of this late-19th and early-20th Century transition include deskilling, short-term job losses, colonization of space, and spatial segregation of social classes. Each of these outcomes is possible with a manual-to-automated vehicle transition, with equally important public policy challenges.