10,000 trips in electric vehicles.
Self-driving EV’s in all major cities would be a big win for the climate and the air quality.
Self-driving EV’s in all major cities would be a big win for the climate and the air quality.
> As a result, total PM10 emissions from EVs were found to be equal to those of modern ICEVs. PM2.5 emissions were only 1–3% lower for EVs compared to modern ICEVs. Therefore, it could be concluded that the increased popularity of electric vehicles will likely not have a great effect on PM levels. Non-exhaust emissions already account for over 90% of PM10 and 85% of PM2.5 emissions from traffic. These proportions will continue to increase as exhaust standards improve and average vehicle weight increases. Future policy should consequently focus on setting standards for non-exhaust emissions and encouraging weight reduction of all vehicles to significantly reduce PM emissions from traffic.
As the quote mentioned, this can be improved. Lighter batteries, better regenerative breaking, and improvements in tire material would all help.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13522...
Anyone who has been to Oslo understands EVs are a huge benefit for urban air quality.
And obviously the technology making these cars possible also make self driving busses possible, which would allow new ways for urban mobility.
This is total bullshit. EVs barely use frictional brakes at all. My Tesla Model S from 2014 is still on the original set of brakepads after nearly 200000 miles. Several EV car models even have a problem with disks _rusting_ because the frictional brakes are not used except when the car is parked.
If anything, EVs will absolutely cut down on brake dust.
With tires, it's a bit more nuanced. Regular tires can indeed wear a bit faster on an EV, especially if you are addicted to high acceleration. But tire vendors are now producing EV-optimized tires that are a bit more durable, and it seems like the difference is pretty negligible.
Also, keep in mind that your bullshit study only looked at weight. So it follows that buses and trucks (that have MUCH more weight) will leave genocide and devastation in their wake.
Obv. I haven't read anything but the summary but the core assumption means it's an extrapolation and not measuring actuals.
For example, while EVs accelerate faster, regen braking massively reduces brake wear - the lack of mention of regen in this extrapolative study seems a huge miss. Also EVs typically don't have the same tire material - they use low rolling resistance tires which do better on particulates.
And it's no longer true that EVs are heavier than comparable combustion vehicles. The Tesla Model 3 weighs 3,550-4,070lbs. The BMW 3 Series weighs 3,200–4,330lbs, though the lightest model is a two door convertible. While combustion vehicles don't carry heavy batteries, they do need exhaust systems, more complicated drivetrains, and bigger cooling systems. Also, more and more combustion vehicles are becoming hybrids to meet stricter emissions standards. That means adding weight for batteries, an electric motor, and a transmission that can handle both propulsion sources.
1. See figure 6 in this paper: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/12/2/190
I can also attest to it. I've interacted as a pedestrian and cyclist to many cruise and waymo cars and they've been very, very cautious and careful.
The reason so many people die in US cities is because of policy, not because people can't drive inherently.
If it's utility electric, from what fuel source is it generated?
[1] https://www.eia.gov/state/print.php
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Ar...
Self-driving car fleets probably increase suburbization in the same way that trains created suburbs long ago.
Depending on how it breaks out, "more space per person at similar total environmental impact" is a quality of life win but not a climate-change-fighting one.
Pedestrian safety and other externalities are probably a big win, still.
The parking lot point is interesting, I hadn't thought about that.
But it's not obviously better to me: commuting behavior is very time-of-day determined, and the cars are gonna have to be somewhere in between rush hours. You don't want them on the road, and you can probably shift around to catch other sorts of predictable demand, but environmentally you're gonna want to minimize the total nubmer of miles driven without passengers.
EDIT: so in areas with less development and commmuters are parking their cars in surface lots all day, yeah, you don't need those surface lots for commuters + all the other lots at retail, residential, etc all at once if the cars are moving around to other uses during the day. But in denser recent-development areas where office parks predominantly have underground or garage parking it may be harder to realize infill there.
Self-driving EV’s in all major cities would be a big win for the climate
and the air quality.
This does jack squat for getting across San Francisco or from corner to corner of Phoenix.
Getting from outer sunset to market by bike daily isn't really practical, especially during Weather.,
I though this too until I looked at the true dollar costs or carbon impact per passenger mile. That doesn't even account for the externalities of particulate pollution and road wear. The buses in my city are also filthy diesel, belching thick, noxious, clouds of soot as they accelerate away from the stop, right at crowds of people who just got off the bus. Heavy buses also require special concrete pads at every stop and still do heavy damage to the road surface: rutting and exacerbating potholes.
still do heavy damage to the road surface: rutting and exacerbating potholes.
Look at lord Elno's autonomous vehicle tunnel – individual vehicles simply don't scale.
Unleaded gasoline will leave a nasty residue on your exhaust but that's about as bad as it (should) get. Alcohol and gas will burn cleaner but come with their own drawbacks. Trolley buses, of course, don't have tailpipe emissions but not everyone is willing to put up with the overhead infrastructure.
And hey, battery EV buses are starting to become a thing too (e.g. SF is trialing ones from a few different manufacturers).
Bike lanes don't appreciable increase the percentage of trips by bike, they dis-proportionally slow down car traffic, and the bike commutes themselves are probably the worst transit mode in the US.
Heck, bike lanes almost never even _replace_ the amount of traffic that they displace.
All bike lanes do, is cater to a bike lobby that tries to force their hobby on everybody else, at the expense of practicality.
It’s like saying “self-driving cars and solving the nitrogen fixation problem would be a big win for preventing famine.”
Basically, if the cost can be comparable to car ownership, reducing resource use by making car buying of any kind far more difficult. Which is admittedly entirely a thought experiment. Though it is a thought experiment many authors seem to arrive at.
Edit: I wish I could say I was surprised at the downvotes for a comment that is pro-worker.
I can’t help thinking that the potential upside will far out-way the cost.
London streets are littered with dormant vehicles. Most just sit there taking up room and dominating the city. It would be a whole other city if we could change that dynamic.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-...
Many of the jobs you are referring to are socially fulfilling to some people. It's an escape from a poor home situation or from an addiction.
It was what he used to survive though, and surely not all cab drivers would be the same.
My brother in law drove Uber when he was illegally canned from his factory work and is the reason he got to eat.
There are options to solve problems that don't require a change in the outcome you desire. Mainly something along the lines of forcing the companies profiting from this to pay a person a reasonable wage to act as the social aspect that will be missing. So the job market can be unaffected.
It's not just a cab job problem either. It's also not about who I like or dislike or whether or not it impacts me or not. I have never used a cab in my life and I cannot drive and thus have no car taking up your street.
I do however see a worsening homeless crisis in my small-ish Canadian city. I would rather see empty cars than tortured souls.
Force them to hire someone to sit in a car all day and do absolutely nothing?
To act as a local for a traveler.
To recommend locations
To do nothing but sit there and look at their device or read
Or perhaps the answer is a tax on automation and everyone can sit at home perpetually online.
Im not claiming to have answers to this rapidly approaching problem. It's definitely a problem though. Even if it doesn't impact myself whatsoever at this time.
What is your job? If it is gone tomorrow and your education is useless, what will you do?
What about your family and friends?
Nobody I know wants this. I’ve had great Uber, Lyft and taxi drivers. But they’re far from the norm. I’d much prefer to be able to play my own music, or take back-to-back phone calls, or snore loudly.
If this is genuinely the service, there is booming business in tour guiding.
I drove cabs for nine years (right up until Covid).
Some people want to talk, some people don’t want to talk, some people just won’t stop talking and you have to tune them out.
What everyone had in common was the desire to get from point A to point B as cheaply as possible. They didn’t care about any social aspect, given the choice I suspect the majority of them would rather not have been paying for my livelihood if it meant the ride was cheaper.
How many people do you think fell for the Lyft “fist bump” BS over taking a VC subsidized ride for a discount over a taxi?
Essentially removing most economic incentive to deploy self-driving cars at all?
Is money to goal or is it a better society? Less pollution, less waste, more social interaction, and increased safety. Less colored paper.
Surely the government has an interest in financially incentivising this development. Especially given a decrease in road wear and tear, lower climate impact and surely any number of other benefits.
More people taking cheaper trips in cleaner vehicles is a better society in my book.
What about when it's Waymo One or Uber Zero. Support is GPT7 Two.
No call center jobs, no driving jobs, less supporting jobs, less money flow, more homelessness, more violence. Decreasing compensation for the jobs remaining due to increased competition.
Short term profits go brrr?
Have you tried to get support on Uber, Lyft or a taxi?
> No call center jobs, no driving jobs, less supporting jobs, less money flow, more homelessness, more violence. Decreasing compensation for the jobs remaining due to increased competition
It's difficult to distinguish this from neo-Luddism. Maybe there is nothing productive for those people to do. If so, we can address it then. But the history of technological revolutions–from the agrarian to the internet–suggests the opposite. (We are, after all, discussing jobs which first arose around a century ago.)
"Let's make artificial fake work to make sure that people have something to do and money."
Hopefully we can do better than that.