Driverless Cars Are Giving Engineers a Fuel Economy Headache (bloomberg.com)

schwit1 shares a report from Bloomberg: Judging from General Motors' test cars and Elon Musk's predictions, the world is headed toward a future that's both driverless and all-electric. In reality, autonomy and battery power could end up being at odds. That's because self-driving technology is a huge power drain. Some of today's prototypes for fully autonomous systems consume two to four kilowatts of electricity -- the equivalent of having 50 to 100 laptops continuously running in the trunk, according to BorgWarner Inc. The supplier of vehicle propulsion systems expects the first autonomous cars -- likely robotaxis that are constantly on the road -- will be too energy-hungry to run on battery power alone. A fully autonomous subcompact car like a Honda Fit, for example, will get 54.6 miles to the gallon in 2025 in the best-case scenario, more than 5 miles below the U.S. emissions target, according to BorgWarner. A small pickup or SUV would be at 45.8 mpg, versus a target of 50. Engineers don't have much time to resolve this, as companies are planning to deploy their first fully self-driving cars in the next couple of years. One way for automakers to meet the power-hungry needs of self-driving systems will be to use gasoline-electric hybrid models rather than purely electric cars, said Mary Gustanski, chief technology officer of supplier Delphi Automotive Plc's powertrain business.

Comments

Didn't consider miniaturization? Moore's Law?

[bit trollent]

Really? These engineers didn't consider that processing power is constantly shrinking and becoming more efficient?

I feel like I'm reading an article from 30 years ago about how computers will never fit inside your home because the take up large rooms!

Re:Didn't consider miniaturization? Moore's Law?

[ShanghaiBill]

Really? These engineers didn't consider that processing power is constantly shrinking and becoming more efficient?

Also, the claim that SDCs will have computers consuming 2-4 kw seems implausible. Tesla Autopilot consumes WAY less than that, and is doing basically the same thing in terms of processing sensory data. Waymo will have access to TPUs that can process vision data eight times more efficiently than GPUs, which themselves consume no where near 2kw. There may be some heavily instrumented prototypes that have 2-4kw of computing power, but that doesn't mean the production version will do that.

Easy Solution

[freeze128]

The answer is simple: Outsource the processing power to an overseas call center where your virtual driver (Let's call him 'Steve') will steer the car in a simulator-like environment. A few webcams around the car will certainly use less power than that huge LIDAR pod on top of WAYMO cars.