Abstract:

Transportation is the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy consumption globally. While the convergence of shared mobility, vehicle automation, and electrification has the potential to drastically reduce transportation impacts, it requires careful integration with rapidly evolving electricity systems. The authors use a U.S.-wide simulation framework that includes private electric vehicles (EVs), shared automated EVs (SAEVs), charging infrastructure, controlled EV charging, and a grid economic dispatch model to simulate personal mobility entirely utilising EVs to investigate these relationships. When compared to gasoline vehicles, the authors conclude that private EVs with uncontrolled charging reduce GHG emissions by 46%. Private EVs with fleetwide controlled charging would achieve a 49% reduction in emissions from baseline and reduce peak charging demand by 53% from the uncontrolled scenario. The authors also find that a SAEV fleet 9% the size of today’s active vehicle fleet can satisfy trip demand with only 2.6 million chargers (0.2 per EV). Such a SAEV fleet would achieve a 70% reduction in GHG emissions at 41% of the lifecycle cost as a private EV fleet with controlled charging. The emissions and cost advantage of SAEVs is primarily due to reduced vehicle manufacturing compared with private EVs. This study provides strong evidence of the value of SAEV fleets to decarbonize personal transportation without compromising individual mobility needs.