archived at https://archive.fo/QMZQw https://archive.fo/QMZQw How Much Power Do Autonomous Vehicles Use? A Lot A model of power consumption by autonomous vehi

archived at https://archive.fo/QMZQw https://archive.fo/QMZQw How Much Power Do Autonomous Vehicles Use? A Lot A model of power consumption by autonomous vehicles predicts that once widely adopted, they will consume as much power worldwide as data centers do. By Bill Schweber 02.27.2023 My summary: > “1 billion autonomous vehicles, each driving for one hour per day with a computer consuming 840 W, would consume enough energy to generate about the same amount of emissions as data centers currently do.” > Well… maybe yes, maybe not. Despite the academic veneer and a detailed table explaining their model and its embedded assumptions, the inherent nature of the model has many rough estimates, sophisticated guesses and outright assumptions. I’d compare it more to a fancy “back of the envelope” assessment (Figure 2) rather than a rigorous academic analysis. Step back, and there’s the reality that any assessment of the future for a situation such as this is simply not possible. > Call me cynical, but it seems that the design reality is that system demands and thus power use often expand to the maximum the system can provide or tolerate. Remember, when transistors and ICs were devised and then went to ever-lower voltage/power, the per-function dissipation dropped by several orders of magnitude—you can’t argue with that fact. > However, coincidentally with this good news, user requirements increased at a greater rate, so now you have server racks pushing almost 10 kW each—an almost unthinkable figure just a decade ago, up from about 2.4 kW each in 2011 according to one survey (I have seen others, and those numbers are similar) (Figure 3).