Self-Driving Cars Could Drive Global Carbon Emissions

In the future, self-driving cars’ computational needs may fuel a large increase in global carbon emissions. The energy needed to run the powerful computers onboard a global fleet of autonomous vehicles could generate as much greenhouse gas emissions as what all global data centers combined currently emit. That’s one key finding of a new study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that explored the potential energy consumption and related carbon emissions of autonomous vehicles if they are widely adopted. They account for about 0.3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, or about as much carbon as the country of Argentina produces annually, according to the International Energy Agency. “We are hoping that people will think of emissions and carbon efficiency as important metrics to consider in their designs,” says Sze.