The car of the future will be self-driving, shared and electric.
That’s according to a survey of the nation’s top transportation experts, announced Monday in a press release by the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis.
Those three technological revolutions are leading the rapid change in transportation, and the experts say government awareness and involvement are key to ensure that driverless vehicles benefit everyone and do not harm the environment, the survey’s authors said.
Google, Tesla, GM and the ride-hailing services Uber and Lyft are expected to be at the forefront of the innovation described in the survey, Mollie D’Agostino, a spokeswoman for the university, wrote in the prepared statement.
Forty policymakers, researchers, and representatives from government, nonprofit organizations, and the technology and auto industries participated in the survey, which was developed in connection with the launch of ITS-Davis’ new Policy Initiative, “3 Revolutions: Sharing, Electrification and Automation.”
“For the first time in half a century, real, transformative innovations are coming to the world of passenger transportation,” said Dan Sperling, director of ITS-Davis and the new 3 Revolutions Policy Initiative. “This survey shows us that without thoughtful collaboration and community-facing policies, these changes would lead to increased inequities, vehicle travel, and greenhouse gas emissions. We need to be creative in order to steer these innovations to the public interest.”
But has hopeful and forward-looking as Sperling and the survey may be, it comes as some states have begun to whittle away at tax incentives that helped electric vehicles gain a small but steadily rising share of the U.S. automobile market in the past several years. In some states, there is a move to repeal tax credits for battery-powered vehicles or let them expire. And some states either repealed tax credits (Georgia in 2015) or have introduced bills (Illinois and Indiana, for example) that would impose a special fee on those who own electric cars.
Further, in the coming days, the Trump administration is expected to roll back tough federal regulations on vehicle emissions, an environmental legacy of President Barack Obama. No surprise, the changes would give American automakers less incentive to produce more battery-powered cars.
The decisions being made in states allowing tax credits to expire also come as overall electric car sales account for only 1 percent of the American market. Some automotive analysts say federal tax incentives need to be allowed to continue as more people will consider buying electric vehicles, such as the Chevrolet Bolt, the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla line of all-electric vehicles.
Additionally, the ITS-Davis group released a set of policy briefs, which were guest-authored by leading transportation policy experts.
The 3 Revolutions Policy Initiative addresses the big policy questions related to these new technologies, and the partnerships needed to bring the greatest social and market benefit, D’Agostino noted.
Among the survey highlights (online at 3rev.ucdavis.edu):
• Seventy percent of survey participants think fully driverless vehicles will account for more than 20 percent of vehicles sold by 2040.
• Eighty-eight percent think commercially offered shared rides will make up more than 5 percent of all U.S. passenger miles by 2030, and 78 percent think commercially offered shared rides will account for more than 20 percent of U.S. passenger miles traveled by 2040.
• Seventy percent also think that by 2050, the majority of vehicles used commercially for ride and car-sharing in the nation will be zero-emission vehicles, including battery, plug-in hybrid, and fuel-cell electric vehicles.
Almost all of the survey participants selected California as the state most likely to embrace all three transportation trends, noted D’Agostino.
When respondents were asked to specify which companies are best positioned to capitalize on the revolution in autonomous, shared and electric vehicles, 67 percent listed Google, 64 percent named Tesla and Uber, and 48 percent chose Lyft and General Motors.
“The results of this survey suggest that disruptive technologies are coming from both inside and outside automotive,” said Peter Kosak, executive director, Urban Mobility at General Motors. “In the end, partnerships — including working relationships with governments and communities — are likely essential to a rapid and successful transition.”
Still, state and federal policies could help avoid inequalities and harmful fossil-fuel emissions. The survey authors maintain.
Without policy actions, 77 percent of survey respondents said that the benefits of shared, automated vehicles will not be evenly distributed across income levels, and 80 percent said that sales of automated vehicles (not all of them electric) will result in more greenhouse gas emissions.
“At this point, there is no market guarantee that automated vehicles will be electric vehicles,” without government or a public-private partnership in the technology, D’Agostino said Monday in a telephone interview.
But California will continue to lead the way by being ready to foster the technological development, a prominent state official said.
“The state of California has programs in place to fully support the rapid transition of the vehicle fleet to zero-emission vehicles, both battery electric and fuel cell,” Richard W. Corey, executive officer of the California Air Resources Board, said in the press release. “This new survey underscores the need for the state to continue to work closely with research institutions like ITS-Davis and others. We will have a growing need for robust data and analysis to develop the incentives and programs needed to ensure that the inevitable shift to driverless cars and more shared-transportation choices works hand-in-glove with the expanding zero-emission vehicle market to help California achieve our climate and air quality goals.”
The UCD survey, the pending legislation in several states and the Trump administration’s plans to reverse federal emissions standards come more than a decade after the debut of “Who Killed the Electric Car?” a 2006 documentary that explored the creation, limited sales, and eventual destruction of the battery-powered electric vehicle in the United States, specifically GM’s EV1 in the mid-1990s. At the time, the city of Vacaville had a small fleet of electric vehicles and images of them were seen in the film, directed by Chris Paine and narrated by actor Martin Sheen.
Two years after the release the documentary, Vacaville’s Economic Development Director Mike Palombo said that the city was known for its “hot bed of support” for electric vehicles.
“We have a very strong history,” he said. “That’s why we’re known as ‘ Voltageville.’”
Palombo also noted at that time, the city had more electric vehicles per capita than any other city in the United States.