{"id":30019,"date":"2023-01-13T18:46:01","date_gmt":"2023-01-13T18:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2023\/01\/13\/self-driving-car-computing-not-great-for-emissions-study-the-register\/"},"modified":"2023-01-13T18:46:01","modified_gmt":"2023-01-13T18:46:01","slug":"self-driving-car-computing-not-great-for-emissions-study-the-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2023\/01\/13\/self-driving-car-computing-not-great-for-emissions-study-the-register\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-driving car computing not great for emissions: study \u2022 The Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

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If widely adopted, self-driving cars are going to introduce another source of unaccounted-for carbon emissions that could surpass those of the world’s current complement of datacenters: The computer brains that power them.<\/p>\n

This, of course, assumes self-driving cars capable of level 4 or 5 autonomy are actually realized<\/a>, but the trio of MIT researchers behind the findings<\/a> say the framework they’ve built to model carbon emissions from computers inside autonomous vehicles (AV) should call attention to hidden carbon costs and help the auto industry plan for a greener future.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We are hoping that people will think of emissions and carbon efficiency as important metrics to consider in their designs,” said<\/a> Vivienne Sze, MIT associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science and co-author on the paper.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our potential AV future is a carbon-heavy one<\/h3>\n

The MIT researchers say that, if trends in computing power and green energy adoption hold true, and if “projections based on aggressive cost reduction and high customer satisfaction [that] can yield AVs capturing up to 95 percent of the market share by 2050” are correct, an assumed global fleet of one billion AVs driving an average of one hour per day, using a computer that consumes 840w, would consume enough power to equal global datacenter emissions from 2018.<\/p>\n

Per the paper, global datacenters accounted for 0.3 percent of carbon emissions in 2018, roughly equivalent to the entire country of Argentina.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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