FORTUNE -- As shipping gets supersized, shore-side operations are also getting an upgrade. The Port of Rotterdam, Europe's largest, is undergoing a massive expansion. It's in the middle of constructing an all-new port, dubbed Maasvlakte II, which will be the size of roughly 3,737 football fields when completed. The first ships will start unloading there in 2014.

Maasvlakte II will be home to the world's most sophisticated loading and unloading operations. APM Terminals, a subsidiary of shipping giant Maersk, is building the first-ever remote-operated seaside crane, where an operator in a nearby office will unload the ship using a joystick and video screens. It will also incorporate driverless vehicles that can drop off cargo by themselves without waiting for a crane, another first, and will completely shut off whole sections of the terminal to regular human-driven vehicles. Once completed, it will be the most heavily automated ever built. The planned result? Fewer accidents, lower costs, and a 50% increase in operating efficiency.

The terminal's managing director, Frank Tazelaar, says the APMT's operation will be able to handle 2.7 billion twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) per year when it opens, and will eventually process 4.5 million per year TEU once it gets going. The entire Port of Rotterdam moved about 12 million TEU last year.

The new terminals are a big step forward (especially when compared to the antiquated U.S. port infrastructure), but even more automation is on the horizon. In coming years, expect better cranes, conveyor belts, and even fewer human operators.

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I have spent quite a bit of time lately thinking about autonomous cars, and I wanted to summarize my current thoughts and predictions. Most people – experts included – seem to think that the transition to driverless vehicles will come slowly over the coming few decades, and that large hurdles exist for widespread adoption. I believe that this is significant underestimation. Autonomous cars will be commonplace by 2025 and have a near monopoly by 2030, and the sweeping change they bring will eclipse every other innovation our society has experienced.

The transition is already beginning to happen. Elon Musk, Tesla Motor’s CEO, says that their 2015 models will be able to self-drive 90 percent of the time. And the major automakers aren’t far behind – according to Bloomberg News, GM’s 2017 models will feature “technology that takes control of steering, acceleration and braking at highway speeds of 70 miles per hour or in stop-and-go congested traffic.” Both Google and Tesla predict that fully-autonomous cars – what Musk describes as “true autonomous driving where you could literally get in the car, go to sleep and wake up at your destination” – will be available to the public by 2020.

Industry experts think that consumers will be slow to purchase autonomous cars – while this may be true, it is a mistake to assume that this will impede the transition. Morgan Stanley’s research shows that cars are driven just 4% of the time,5 which is an astonishing waste considering that the average cost of car ownership is nearly $9,000 per year. Next to a house, an automobile is the second most expensive asset that most people will ever buy – it is no surprise that ride sharing services like Uber and car sharing services like Zipcar are quickly gaining popularity as an alternative to car ownership. It is now more economical to use a ride sharing service if you live in a city and drive less than 10,000 miles per year. The impact on private car ownership is enormous: a UC-Berkeley study showed that vehicle ownership among car sharing users was cut in half. The car purchasers of the future will not be you and me – cars will be purchased and operated by ride sharing and car sharing companies.

And current research confirms that we would be eager to use autonomous cars if they were available. A full 60% of US adults surveyed stated that they would ride in an autonomous car, and nearly 32% said they would not continue to drive once an autonomous car was available instead. But no one is more excited than Uber – drivers take home at least 75% of every fare. It came as no surprise when CEO Travis Kalanick recently stated that Uber will eventually replace all of its drivers with self-driving cars.

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