Experiments in Autonomous Mobility: What About the Climate Challenge?

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The autonomous mobility is the talk of the town and is certainly generating a lot of buzz a lot of enthusiasm among transportation enthusiasts (whether private or public). The French government has been supporting its development for several years, and the recent announcement by the Minister of Transportation, Élisabeth Borne, is a very clear confirmation of this [1].

However, apparently endowed with every virtue, Will the advent of autonomous vehicles contribute positively—or not—to the decarbonization of transportation? The answer to this key question is by no means clear at this point: the rebound effect, a possible increase in the preference for cars, the energy impact of digital technology… these are all factors that raise questions about the compatibility of autonomous mobility with the fight against climate change.

In fact, it is impossible to answer this question today because The future of autonomous mobility is still very uncertain. There are several possible paths depending on the organizational choices that will be made, each with its own risks and benefits in terms of sustainability. Let’s take advantage of current and future experiments to:

• develop and monitor indicators of sustainable independent mobility,
• Conduct comprehensive analyses of the environmental impacts of these various experiments, both to date and from a forward-looking perspective, as part of a broader implementation under various scenarios

Only on this basis will we be able to identify the conditions necessary to ensure that the development of autonomous mobility is compatible with the rapid decarbonization of the economy.

To learn more and gain a better understanding of the challenges of Sustainable Autonomous Mobility, we invite you to read our recent article on this topic here.

Sources:
[1] MTES