Foreign Policy, a blog I enjoy immensely has had a guest post discussing electric self driving cars by Steven Kopits from energy-strategy company Douglas-Westwood.

The article starts by making some interesting notes on electric car sales:

There were 13 million vehicles sold in the United States last year, meaning that electric vehicles comprised a meager 0.1 percent of the market…. Is the electric car then history? Will the Leaf and the Volt go the way of the ill-fated EV1, General Motors’ electric car from the 1990s? If the status quo persists, they very well might.

Steven goes on to become quite enthusiastic about the economic and social aspects of driverless cars:

The market for self-driving technology is large — my firm estimates it at $25 billion per year….Indeed, once the idea of sending the car to park itself takes hold, it is almost irresistible. Self-driving cars would be the biggest time-saving breakthrough since the washing machine.

In particular he sees a lot of potential in Transport as a Service (TaaS) utilizing electric robo-taxis:

In the town of Princeton, New Jersey, for example, taxis are found only at the train station, and the brief round trip from there to downtown Princeton costs approximately $40. Of this, only $5 represents vehicle-related costs; the remainder is attributable to the driver. At usage rates rivaling that of taxis — perhaps 100 miles per day — electric cars are quite competitive because of their lower operating costs. Thus a self-driving electric car could also make the same round trip at a cost of only $5. For a twice-daily, off-peak user, the monthly cost of vehicle access could be less than $300 — much less than the cost of car ownership.

As they say, read the whole thing, its also worth giving the comments section a once over.

We’re also interested in your thoughts on this topic. Will driverless technology save the electric car? Or will autonomous vehicles primarily be powered by hydrocarbons?

Edit: We’ve long thought that electric autonomous vehicles make sense. After all they could drive off and recharge themselves.

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4. Electric Car Myths Debunked
5. Stanford Developing System To Charge Electric Cars Wirelessly On Highways