If electric, autonomous taxis will dominate the road by 2030, greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced by 90% per mile, a study by scientists has found.
The new study, conducted by researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, was focused on the amount of per-mile greenhouse gas emissions from autonomous, "driverless" vehicles, which was calculated to be 63% to 82% lower compared with hybrid vehicles, and 90% lower compared with standard petrol-powered vehicles.
The report that appeared Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change also found that if 5% or roughly 800,000 of all vehicles sold in 2030 would have autonomous electric systems, almost seven million oil barrels would be saved every year, consequently leading to reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
"When we first started looking at autonomous vehicles, we found that, of all the variables we could consider, the use of autonomous vehicles as part of a shared transit system seemed to be the biggest lever that pointed to lower energy use per mile," said study co-author Jeffery Greenblatt, according to CBS News.
Greenblatt and co-author Samveg Saxena wrote in the report that a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by the "robo-taxis" would mainly come from "right-sizing", a term they used to describe matching the right vehicle size to the number of passengers for each trip.
"Most trips in the U.S. are taken singly, meaning one- or two-seat cars would satisfy most trips," said Greenblatt. Right-sizing is like hitting two birds with one stone—a smaller car means less energy is used and greenhouse gas emissions are reduced.
While production of autonomous vehicles entails high costs, it will still be a lot cheaper compared with standard taxis of today, not only because it is more energy-efficient but also because there is no need for a driver and fares will be lower.
It will still take a lot of time before anyone can experience a ride in a driverless taxi. Besides, there are other challenges to overcome, one of which is to convince people that these cars are safe.
