In The Verge, I explained why self-driving cars could be a disaster for climate change and road safety -- even if they work perfectly.

The answer lies in the Jevons paradox, a classic 19th century economic theory.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/2/24232386/self-driving-car-jevons-paradox-robotaxi-waymo-cruise

#climate #climatechange #cars

What a 160-year-old theory about coal predicts about our self-driving future

The Jevons paradox originated in the coal era, but it has a lot to teach us about the future of self-driving cars.

The Verge
@davidzipper Energy demand will continue to increase & the only true way forward is clean sources of energy. It's an equation; number of people times number of energy-consuming machines per person times energy units per machine times pollution per unit. The only way to bring the result of that equation to zero is for one of the factors to be zero - so unless we want to either eliminate people or machines, the only factor we can even imagine getting to zero is the last one...