Self-Driving Cars Could Cut Greenhouse Gas Pollution

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Excitement around connected and autonomous vehicles has been building for years with consumers interested in the convenience of never having to touch the steering wheel and governments anticipating significant improvements in road safety. It's presumed that these technologies will also have energy efficiency and emissions reductions benefits, but only recently have experts been able to quantify them.

The University of Michigan and the Argonne National Laboratories outside of Chicago and Idaho National Laboratory are teaming up to see if the V2V technology also can help motorists save fuel.

The university and two U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories plan to collaborate on a study to determine if connected and automated vehicles could help people drive more efficiently.

Reuben Sarkar, DOE Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation, announced the department will finance the research through a $2.7 million grant that he described as an "incubator award" to help DOE learn more about connected and automated vehicles, which are a growing focus for the agency.

"I want to congratulate the University of Michigan as the recipient of our incubator award, in partnership with Argonne National Lab and Idaho National Lab, to help us study the energy impact of connected and automated vehicles by taking advantage of U-M’s 500-vehicle fleet," Sarkar said.

A report from 2014 by the Intelligent Transportation Society of America projects that so-called intelligent transportation systems (ITS) could achieve a 2 to 4 percent reduction in oil consumption and related greenhouse gas emissions each year over the next 10 years as these technologies percolate into the market.

The study examined fuel savings from 16 emerging transportation technologies, such as adaptive cruise control, eco-navigation, wireless communications to improve the efficiency of existing transportation infrastructure, such as traffic light synchronization. It also calculated the expected fuel savings from several alternative fuel technologies, which benefit from tools for tracking fuel use and state of electric charge. 

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