Autonomous cars can cut fuel demand
because it’s a pretty difficult thing to measure. But any time you’re talking about automation, you’re talking about making things more efficient,” he said. “It’s really about using the exact amount of acceleration or brake for the circumstance.”
So far, the potential threat of autonomous cars does not appear to have set off alarms within the oil offices that dot the Houston skyline. “It’s not something we’ve had a deep dive on,” said a spokesman for Exxon Mobil.
In part, cars have gotten so much efficient already under standards enacted by the Obama administration to combat the effects of climate change that U.S. demand for petroleum products is already on the decline.
“The oil companies are already getting hammered by this,” said Michael Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas. “If you look at the fuel efficiencies and biofuel mandates, autonomous cars are just another problem to contend with.”
About a quarter of all the energy used in this country each day goes to propelling vehicles, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. And last year U.S. motorists consumed less than 390 million gallons of gasoline a day, a 1.5 percent reduction from peak consumption in 2007.
As cars become more autonomous, energy demand may become less certain. Perhaps demand will drop because cars will be more efficient, or perhaps it will rise because people will use them more. Meantime, computers are already capable of finetuning the mechanics of driving — doing away with mankind’s worst highway habits — to cut down on fuel use. Cruise control
A European study in 2012, which included auto manufacturers Ford and Volkswagen, found that even an advanced form of cruise control, a decadeold technology that adjusts a car’s speed based on what the vehicle in front does, reduces its fuel use by 3 percent. The potential energy savings are such that ARPA-E, the advanced research division of the Department of Energy, is putting up $30 million in grant money for engineers to build upon automation technology and actually find ways to get cars to use less fuel. Some of that work is already being done on at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, a 1,200-acre campus where engineers work on developing autonomous vehicles for everyone from the U.S. military to farmers to major car manufacturers.
The institute does not actually make the vehicles. Rather, it develops the algorithms that allow cars “to learn and anticipate and predict,” said Ryan Lamm, director of research and development at the institute’s automation and data systems division.
On a 1.2 mile test track, a Ford Explorer uses both GPS and a camera pointed at the asphalt to navigate its way from point A to B. The idea is that GPS is great for directions but not precise enough to determine whether a car is creeping into a neighboring lane. So the cars cross-reference the feed from the camera with its database of images of the asphalt on the track to keep it from going off line.
“There’s a lot of venture capital funding flowing into this right now,” Lamm said. “It’s almost is like an arms race.”
Google’s prototype autonomous cars are riding around Austin and Northern California — sans steering wheels. Uber has been raiding the engineering department of Carnegie Mellon University to man a new research and testing facility around an old railroad station in Pittsburgh.
Now that GM has invested $500 million in the ride service Lyft, the firms plan to begin trying out autonomous taxis at a closed- testing facility within a year, according to Lyft. Real-life conditions
When will a truly autonomous vehicle that can operate in any conditions without any human intervention be available for sale? Tesla founder Elon Musk, who has perplexed investors for years with his wide-eyed predictions on space and electric cars, told Fortune magazine in December that his company would do it within two years.
But many experts are not so sure. There is the technology to still figure out — lasers and cameras might do well on clean, well-marked streets in sunny Austin, but struggle with inclement weather and the vagaries of real-life road conditions. Additionally, current driving codes are built around humans being behind the wheel and will require a dramatic overhaul to allow for autonomous vehicles, said John German, a veteran car engineer who now works for the non-profit International Council on Clean Transportation.
“Things have come a long way but if you’re going to have a truly autonomous car, you have to know everything’s perfect,” he said. “I figure it’s probably 10 years away. But maybe it’s only five. It’s hard to say. Some manufacturers aren’t being public about their technology.”
But German has no doubt autonomous cars will dominate roadways one day. And when they do, the potential for energy savings are huge.
Automated cars would be a natural platform for electric engines, which require about one third the energy of a traditional internal combustion model. While limited in distance and slower to charge than filling a gasoline tank, fleet vehicles that could charge themselves might mitigate those problems.
One could imagine those same cars moving along freeways in closely grouped platoons, cutting down on wind resistance as they race just inches apart. And their computers could coordinate with traffic signals and other cars, adjusting speeds to move through intersections with minimal braking and ending traffic jams.
A 2014 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory found cars and trucks could achieve 15 percent reductions in fuel consumption by maintaining an optimal speed and avoiding stop-and-go traffic.
But for now, that all remains very theoretical. Unintended consequences
As he sits in his offices over the freeway, Atkinson worries about the unintended consequences of a car that could drive itself.
What if people make use of their automated cars by running endless errands through the night or living four hours from their job because they know they can sleep during their commute?
“If everyone is driving four times as much, we’re right back at the same (energy consumption) level we are now,” Atkinson said. “There are studies but they say either we’ll reduce energy consumption or increase it. There’s no consensus because it’s really tough to predict what’s going to happen.”