Climate Change:
Autonomous Mobility and Advanced Battery Systems:
Despite attempts to avert it, the average global temperature continues to rise, primarily because of carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels. Currently, the global economy sends more than a 1,000 tonnes of CO2 skyward per second, 20% of which is attributable to ground transport. The 1.4 billion cars on today’s roads have been profoundly useful in moving people and packages from place to place, but more than 99.5% of them still burn fuel. Barring a transformation in this technology stack, in the 2020s alone cars and trucks are likely to emit almost 20% of the world’s remaining carbon dioxide budget for holding global temperature rises below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“Pollution and climate change by excessive burning of fossil fuels are real threats, not the people who warn that we must take these threats seriously.” David Suzuki, Canadian Academic & Environmental Broadcaster
“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” Dr Jane Goodall, Scientist & Activist
Technology could change this course. Thanks to the cost declines in lithium-ion batteries as well as advances in artificial intelligence, electric vehicles are likely to transition from niche to mainstream products.
“It’s not that the world hasn’t had more carbon dioxide, it’s not that the world hasn’t been warmer. The problem is the speed at which things are changing. We are inducing a sixth mass extinction event kind of by accident and we don’t want to be the ‘extinctee.’” Bill Nye, ‘The Science Guy’
“One can see from space how the human race has changed the Earth. Nearly all of the available land has been cleared of forest and is now used for agriculture or urban development. The polar icecaps are shrinking and the desert areas are increasing. At night, the Earth is no longer dark, but large areas are lit up. All of this is evidence that human exploitation of the planet is reaching a critical limit. But human demands and expectations are ever-increasing. We cannot continue to pollute the atmosphere, poison the ocean and exhaust the land. There isn’t any more available.” Stephen Hawking, Physicist & Author
Autonomous electric robotaxis could provide a more attractive choice.
Autonomous robotaxis are likely to price profitably at roughly $0.25 per mile, 60% below the amortized cost of a personal vehicle. Robotaxis could offer the same point-to-point mobility as the existing gas-powered vehicle fleet with fewer accidents and more convenience. Consumers will not have to prepay for transportation or pay for parking. Watching videos or working in the back seat, they will not have to concentrate on driving either. As a result, as measured by vehiclemiles-traveled, robotaxis should take share from the existing vehicle fleet.
Robotaxi services will begin to proliferate and scale commercially by 2025. Lowering utilization of the existing vehicle fleet, they are likely to displace more oil than will the transition to electric drive trains alone.
“Climate change is a terrible problem, and it absolutely needs to be solved. It deserves to be a huge priority.” Bill Gates, Founder of Microsoft