Autonomous Vehicle News
A recent paper by MIT researchers predicts that by 2050, the energy consumption and emissions of autonomous vehicles (AVs) will be comparable to that of data centers today, which is 1 percent of global energy consumption and 0.3 percent of global emissions. In particular, it’s the smart sensors built into AVs that the researchers think could seriously add up. Each of these cameras is composed of a neural network that is constantly analyzing visual input to ensure the vehicle’s safety. By 2022, the global electricity consumption of Bitcoin mining was between 0.4 and 0.9 percent of global consumption. This puts it just ahead of the current 0.3 percent global energy consumption of data centers and the predicted 2050 energy consumption of AVs, and on par with the country of Argentina.