These are a step in the right direction, but are not as environmentally effective as you might think. Major changes in India's grid energy are needed before thi

These are a step in the right direction, but are not as environmentally effective as you might think. Major changes in India's grid energy are needed before this will yield significant improvements. I was the project lead for a (sadly failed) electric autonomous vehicle project in India, the Amritsar Pod[1]. This was using a technology which, when deployed in the west, is vastly environmentally superior to (say) buses. That's for several reasons that are broadly shared with electric rickshaws: 1. As a demand-responsive vehicle, it only runs when there is passenger demand. So (aside from empty-vehicle redistribution movements) there is a minimum occupancy of 25% (for a single person in a 4-person vehicle), and in many cases, the average occupancy is closer to 35%-50%. This is in contrast to buses, which need to keep circulating even when there is little or no demand. A full-occupancy bus is very efficient, but a 50-person-capacity bus that is carrying 4 passengers is more polluting, per-person than a single-occupant SUV. This is in fact the case in America, where the average occupancy of urban buses is 9%. In Europe it's more like 20-25%. But in both cases, pods are still more efficient. 2. As electric vehicles, they of course produce no tailpipe emissions, and are as clean as whatever grid they draw power from. So put these two factors together, and it's an environmentally winning proposition in the West (although it hasn't caught on there either, yet). But interestingly, this calculation doesn't work in India: 1. The urban buses are hardly low-occupancy. Average occupancies tend to be around 55%, and can reach 85% in some cases. Replacing these with 25%-50% occupancy pods is only a win if the pods are significantly cleaner. 2. The grid energy is horribly dirty. What I found when I did a CO2 analysis of my system is that what would have reduced CO2 by > 90% in the West was merely a break-even proposition in India. Didn't increase CO2 -- and would've been worth doing on the basis of travel time savings, pedestrian conflicts, etc. -- but didn't actually help with CO2 either. This will be the case for any electric vehicle until India's grid becomes significantly cleaner. 1: https://www.ultraglobalprt.com/wheres-it-used/amritsar-india/ https://www.ultraglobalprt.com/wheres-it-used/amritsar-india...