Impacts of ride and car-sharing associated with fully autonomous cars on global energy consumptions and carbon dioxide emissions

Keigo Akimoto, Fuminori Sano and Junichiro Oda

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2022, vol. 174, issue C

Abstract: The improvements in digital technology will induce a sharing economy, and particularly in the transportation sector fully autonomous cars will accelerate ride-sharing and car-sharing. This study analyzes the impacts of ride and car-sharing on global energy demand and reduction in CO2 emission quantitatively and consistently by using a global energy systems model. It considers the direct reduction in energy consumption by cars as well as indirect reduction due to a decrease in the production of iron, steel, plastics, and cement. The ride and car-sharing will provide a significant opportunity for reducing global emissions with low or negative costs. The marginal CO2 abatement cost in 2050 is $169/tCO2 for the 2 °C target, with over 50% probability of achievement under a middle socioeconomic scenario without ride and car-sharing. However, it is $150/tCO2 with the sharing scenario, mitigating the dependence on large-scale deployments of bioenergy with carbon dioxide capture and storage in the power sector. Besides, due to the impact of a reduction in the number of cars and consumption of basic materials, the 2 °C target with over 66% probability as well as over 50% probability can be achieved with economically net positive impacts in 2050.

Keywords: CO2 emission reduction; Transport; Autonomous car; Sharing economy; energy demand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:174:y:2022:i:c:s0040162521007435

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121311

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