Autonomous taxis could be cheaper and improve the environment, says Berkeley Lab study
It’s the year 2030. A fleet of driverless taxis roams throughout your city, ready to pick you up and take you to your destination at a moment’s notice. As a result, greenhouse gases are now 63 to 82 percent lower than with a privately owned hybrid car and 90 percent lower than a 2014 gasoline-powered private vehicle. … Those numbers are from a new study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) published online today (July 6) by Nature Climate Change in an article titled, “Autonomous taxis could greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions of U.S. light-duty vehicles.” Co-authored by Berkeley Lab scientists Jeffery Greenblatt and Samveg Saxena, it was funded in part by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program at Berkeley Lab.