Tucked away in the basement of an iconic office tower shaped like four engine cylinders, engineer Werner Huber is telling me about the joy of driving. We're here at BMW headquarters, in Munich, Germany—capital of Bavaria, and arguably of driving itself. But Huber oversees strategic planning for advanced driver assistance systems, so in a way, his job is to put an end to driving—at least as we know it.

"I think that in 10 to 15 years, it could be another world," Huber says. He's not willing to predict exactly what driving will look like then, but he's certain humans will be doing a lot less of it.