Potentially, yes. Instead of 30k spread across one year, the very possible opportunity for 30k in one mass-hack exists. I will defer to others to debate this. Perhaps financial regulators, safety departments, transportation regulators, insurance companies, etc. This is a very complex topic that would quickly turn into banter here. Everyone will have to decide for themselves the risk factors as it pertains to them.
> the very possible opportunity for 30k in one mass-hack exists
It's fortunate that terrorists are both very incompetent and very low in number. How else do you explain the fact that there's been exactly 1 very serious and successful foreign terror attack on US soil (the highest value target in the world) in the past 50-ish years?
Currently there's the very possible opportunity of a power grid/infrastructure attack that could kill tens of thousands. But nobody should be truly worried about it.
Terrorists just aren't that good at what they do. Why would they somehow be better at hacking cars than they are at anything else?
Most news organizations report on foreign and domestic terror differently. When the average American thinks of a terrorist it isn't a white guy with a U-Haul.
Terrorists? Try 12 year old angst filled kids that get bullied in school and/or at home. How many 10 to 17 year old angst filled kids have access to the internet?
That's 30k potential deaths compared to 30k deaths right now, every year. If terrorist attacks on cars killed 20k/year it would still be much safer than our current situation. We should mandate that every vehicle death be broadcast on the front page of every national media outlet[1]; that might change our perceptions.
I contend that 40 years from now our grandchildren will be astounded that we got into such dangerous vehicles before self-driving cars.
Crash all the self-driving ambulances, crash all the gasoline tanker trucks, crash all the trucks that ferry containers out of ports. You might not kill many people today, but when there's no shipping and no ambulance service people will start dying.
If you wanted to really disrupt society you don't need this level of sophistication or a lot of cash. A few thousand $ and a couple of months preparation time would be more than enough. Keep in mind that destruction and creation are extremely asymmetrical when it comes to the level of effort required.
Facetiousness aside, this is where I hope car crashes would get to. They should be so rare that they do make the local news. They should be so rare we can treat them like airplane crashes and investigate each case to the same degree.
