Fully automated vehicles could eliminate congestion - even as big city populations soar - and spell the end of the auto industry as we know it if implemented as an Uber-style, on-demand ride-share service, with less than 10 per cent of the vehicle fleet being required to ferry people and packages around, a new report says.

But if badly implemented - with individual households and businesses insisting on owning their own autonomous vehicles - the development being trialled around the world and in Australia could destroy the livability of cities, clogging up roads and increasing trip times as empty vehicles return home or to base.