The Rocky Mountain Institute, an energy- focused think tank, says, in effect, that we are  on the verge of an energy and technology transformation to rival the sudden decline of the coal industry.  They point to the real technological transformation that could arrive from the merger of two vehicle trends — automation and electrification — and the idea that it could happen quite fast, with major consequences for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.

Autonomous cars won’t just be safer and more energy efficient, the Institute argues.  Hiring one to taxi you around will also become very cheap, they argue, once these vehicles can be electrified, rather than running on gas. The upshot is that, perhaps quite soon, it will make more economic sense to have a robotaxi ferry you around on all your trips than to personally own a car. At the same time, as the trend becomes widespread — with fleets of autonomous vehicles, owned by companies or cities, on the road and not running on gas — our greenhouse gas emissions could plunge.

By the year 2018, the study argues, “solely using autonomous taxis for transportation could cost the same as owning and operating a car.” More specifically, the researchers think that electric robotaxis might quickly rival the per-mile cost of personal car use, which they say is 85 cents per mile.  Peak  car ownership in the United States will occur around 2020 and will drop quickly after that as a result and almost end in the big cities

And of course these vehicles will be electric because that, too, will save money — in this case, for the companies that own and operate them. The huge distances that autonomous vehicles might drive in their lifetimes will mean that even if an electric vehicle costs more than a gas vehicle to purchase, it will make up the difference over the course of its use.

Most striking is what this would do to greenhouse gas emissions. There would be  a major decrease in gasoline demand and, as a result, a major increase in electricity demand, and a plummeting of transportation-sector greenhouse-gas emissions. Walker said the reduction could be as large as 800 million tons per year in the U.S. by 2035, a huge contribution to fighting climate change.  (based on an article by Chris Mooney, September 22 , 2016)

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My feeling is that the issue is trust.  I wouldn’t trust an autonomous car under any circumstances at the moment.  Geeks are noticeably nonchalant and in denial about the reliability of hi- tech things already on the market. My own computer constantly plays up, and Microsoft and the computer manufacturers have  had 30 years at least to make them reliable.  Automated cars are altogether more potentially scary.  There are regulatory, legal and even ethical ssues to be addressed that will take ages sort out. It is possible to iron these challenges out, but you still have the problem that people are attached to the convenience of their cars and won’t want to give them up, especially if they drive long distances out of cities and into the countryside.