The Advent of Unmanned Electric Vehicles

The world is going through a massive urbanization process with the consequence that for the first time in history physical mobility is regressing. If nothing changes, the growing number of cars and its associated problems—traffic jams, high pollution levels, greater health problems, high number of fatalities, and injuries—will become unacceptable to society. Salvation will need to come from new transportation technologies, changes in work patterns, and in our personal choices on transportation means that the e-revolution can bring. Under the convergence of IT and wireless telecom, and associating the increase in power electronics together with the improvement in battery performance, fantastic new opportunities are being unleashed to reduce energy consumption and increase transport capacity, while improving the passengers’ journey experience. Furthermore, in the connected cities, the “Internet of things” applied to the transportation environment will create a complete set of new technologies and service offerings. Machine to Machine, Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V), and Vehicle to Infrastructure communications are a few of these technologies that will allow for the advent of the unmanned vehicle society. Unmanned trains are already being deployed throughout the world and buses as well as cars will follow suit. This first chapter will give an overview of the main principles and trends that affect transportation. It will provide the readers unfamiliar with transportation challenges, a vision on how e-mobility technologies are being developed to help society apprehend such fundamental changes. It will show which features of society will be impacted by these new technologies. There will be quite a few, as the mobility revolution will disrupt the transport market as we know it, bringing opportunities and threats for many potential actors. Once cars are electric, unmanned, and managed by fleet owners there will be no differentiation between public and private transport. Taxi drivers will disappear but their services will thrive. By proposing journeys for one-fourth of the current taxi ride cost, fleets of autonomous cars will start competing with buses and light metro cars on price. As cars are more comfortable and offer more direct rides, public transport users might decide to change their transport behaviors. Furthermore, multi-points to multi-points transport services with mini vans or big cars will drastically reduce bus attractiveness. At one point in time, transport authorities will just conclude that rather than subsidizing big buses or tramways that run empty, it will make more sense to introduce such services, especially outside peak hour. In other worlds, not only can’t car manufacturers ignore the e-mobility revolution but bus and light train manufacturers are also forced to understand how their own business will be affected by such revolution in the car industry. After all, one of the principles we will see in this chapter is that all transportation means are competing against each other.

In the last few months, unmanned cars have made the headlines throughout the world, showing for instance fascinating Google or Mercedes Benz prototype cars. The reality is that driverless vehicles have been already part of our daily life but most ordinary citizens just didn’t know it. Because these vehicles were hidden behind unmanned metro operational center or were restricted to a few worldwide PRT driverless car systems, the idea that cars could be driven by a computer came as a surprise. Unmanned cars still have a long road to go before they become generalized on our roads. Before this, a continuum of new technologies will be brought to the market, creating increasingly more autonomous cars. Although some of automotive manufacturers are already picturing their cars as completely autonomous, we don’t believe that such a model will prevail. We strongly believe that the same model that is now applied in railways or PRTs will need to be adopted for unmanned cars to be successfully implemented. A system approach will be required based on safety standards, which will need to be homologated like in the railway sector. In fact, we will show that this industry throughout its history has dealt with safety and railway engineers have come up with four safety concepts, which will need to be applied: block interlocking, block signaling, integrity, and interoperability. We will describe thoroughly these principles and how the newer railway technologies, such as moving block, fulfill the safety requirements. In a second step, we will show the parallel between the two industries and how the railway principles need to be adapted to the specific technologies being developed for the automotive industry (i.e., VANET, WAVE, or CALM). In a system approach, we will portray the communication concepts (i.e., V2V, V2I, and V2C), network types (i.e., mesh), and communication technologies (802.11p; DSRC, 4G, or even 5G), which will allow all cars to communicate together and with the infrastructure. Besides these “automotive signaling” concepts, we will introduce sensors and explain the operating principles that will allow cars to maintain a virtual moving interlocking blocks, as well as integrity, a concept fundamental in platooning technology. In the last portion of this chapter, we will show what the blocking points to the adoption of driverless technology are. A long-term cost analysis of these technologies is made to find out when cost will stop being a barrier to adoption. Legal issues will also be addressed and we will suggest solutions to promote the advent of driverless cars. We believe that this advent is inevitable as it will reduce millions of deaths and injuries and will be plebiscited by a society increasingly risk adverse, especially in environments prone to fatalities such as roads.

Electrification of transportation is one of the most efficient solutions to reduce global warming and pollution emission. This is due to the higher efficiency of electric motors in regard to gasoline or diesel technologies. This chapter will prove that this is obviously true at the car level (wheel-to-wheel consumption) but also at the power plant level (well-to-wheel consumption), integrating the energy matrix of a few countries. The methodology proposed can easily be replicated to any country or region the reader may want to benchmark. It will also prove that public transport is more energy friendly than cars when taking into consideration capacity and occupancy rate. To do so, it will indicate for nontechnical readers, how forces such as acceleration, air drag, and friction resistance impact energy consumption of the different transportation modes, using comparable physical parameters. A focus will be given on braking energy recuperation, which is crucial for mass transit operation. New state-of-the art electrical technologies (i.e., permanent magnet motor, SiC inverters, and direct drive) that can reduce even further energy consumption, will be highlighted. As there is a direct relation between energy consumption inefficiencies and pollution, this chapter will also calculate and prove that mass transit and electric cars can reduce significantly the pollution emission wheel-to-wheel and well-to-wheel. The positive consequences of pollutant reduction, on air pollutant-related diseases are also described. Finally, this chapter will estimate the beneficial impact of these higher energy efficiencies on society, such as reduced health and global warming costs. We will show that for countries like France or the USA, the complete electrification of the conventional car fleet would generate direct yearly savings in the range of $20 and $100 billion, respectively.

The world is going through a massive urbanization process with the consequence that for the first time in history physical mobility is regressing. Megacities are already on the verge of coming to a standstill and will only get worse as the number of cars should grow to 1.7 billion, 20 years from now. Just imagine, by 2025, 630 million inhabitants will be living in 37 megacities throughout the world. 35 years from now being 1.2 billion inhabitants will be living in one of these newly formed megacities regrouping several urban areas, reaching a staggering 40–50 million inhabitants. Complete traffic standstill will become the norm if nothing is done. Unfortunately, there are no easy or cheap solutions to solve the megacities’ current transportation problems and the future of mobility looks even bleaker. Under the forces of horizontal growth due to urban sprawl and vertical expansion caused by higher housing densification, these cities aren’t just exploding. In fact, they are imploding, with the consequence that transportation solutions need either to contemplate building underground networks, which is extremely time-consuming and expensive, or “appropriating” large land surfaces and “disappropriating” large residential areas, solutions which are legally difficult and socially explosive. To understand what the potential solutions to enhance roads, bus lanes, and metro network capacity are, we will present simple models. Some of the parameters influencing this capacity, such as vehicle occupancy, average operational speed, fleet size, and headway will be explained in detail. This information will allow, for instance, the readers to understand how many cars can run on a highway during 1 h and what are the features affecting the roads’ throughput. An entire section is dedicated to bus rapid transit systems, an urban transport mode which is still not well known by people but that can seriously compete with heavy metro operations in terms of capacity. Limitations of such system in megacities will also be presented. A complete view of the technologies and concept influencing mass transit capacity will give a complete picture of the various transport modes capacity. Furthermore, it will provide a direct throughput comparison between these various modes using the passenger per hour and per direction (PPHPD) measure, based on current technologies. What this section will also do, and in our view is unique, is that it will calculate the new driverless technologies’ impact on capacity for all three transport modes. This analysis will feature new concepts, such as car platooning and higher occupancy resulting from a fleet of unmanned taxis using a multi-point to multi-point transport model, that new internet Apps will be able to provide. It will show that such solutions could provide the same medium transport capacity as bus and light train operations and thus provide an effective and cheap way of avoiding megacities’ immobility.

To understand how a world without human interference can work or even as a matter of fact write about e-mobility and connected cities, it is in our view impossible not to describe the main technological factors behind this revolution: the internet and its big players. The concept of the “Internet of Things” has been introduced at the end of the twentieth century to describe the interconnection of all objects. With the launch in 2013 of the IPv6 initiative and the introduction of fast Ethernet and 4G telecommunication technologies, we are currently assisting at the laying of the infrastructure foundation enabling everyone or everything, everywhere in the city, to get access to whatever information or services he, she or it needs 24/7. This is fuelling the machine-to-machine (M2M) revolution, which is reshaping public transport and will impact the automotive industry. This chapter explains for nonspecialists what the main IT technologies are, and how all this works together. For a M2M world to thrive, we need: • A rugged, proven software technology built around the Internet Protocol technologies; • Fast and reliable wireless and fixed networks; •An open software architecture, such as SOA, which with its service approach enables a harmonious exchange of information; • Service delivery platforms that sets the rules of how things work; • An event-driven architecture software, which triggers the transfer of data between machines, in order for the system to take precise actions; • Plug and Play technologies enabling the fast and easy connection of trillion of objects. Besides these IT technologies, a M2M network requires sensing devices to acquire information, RFID for data storage and updates, and algorithms running on computers or vehicle control units for data retrieval and treatment. The railway industry has strongly focused on implementing IP-technologies on the way-side and onboard vehicles. Thanks to these IP technologies and the introduction of mobile communication gateway allowing fast and high capacity transfer of sound, image, and metadata, real time monitoring of all railway equipment is now possible. Furthermore, as Governments are imposing stiffer penalties to railway operators and new rules for assessing railway manufacturers’ offers based on the total cost of ownership, this industry has no choice but to process this M2M data stream. Indeed, data mining technologies associated with powerful new algorithms are changing the maintenance discipline, moving away from corrective measures toward predictive models where components and equipment are monitored and replaced according to their probability of failure and its criticality. This generates significant cost reductions and improves the overall trains’ reliability, while reducing penalties. Cars manufacturers have finally also adopted a common standard based around IP technologies. With their introduction in 2016 and the implementation of onboard SIM cards, the automotive industry will face the same challenges and opportunities that hit the railway industry like a storm. This will bring to market new innovative value-added services, such as remote monitoring and diagnostics, automated contact with emergency centers that will save and improve the lives of millions of car passengers.

According to the World Economic Forum, there is a 30 % worldwide yearly gap between what should be and is spent on infrastructure. Unfortunately, this gap is only increasing as population of Africa and India continues growing quickly. This chapter will describe the likely financial players and potential new financial instruments that could bridge such gap, as well as the e-mobility technologies that could help finance public transport and new business models that could reduce pressure for new transport infrastructure. We will describe what the key success factors to enable successful structure finance projects and Public Private Partnerships are. We will show how existing financial instruments (i.e., voluntary carbon market, carbon credit, green bonds, corporate donation and tax exemption, certificate of potential increase in construction) could be adapted to finance new roads or metro lines. We will also propose out-of-the-box solutions based on e-technology such as fast lane cross-subsidizing and localized congestion charges, which could be used to pay for new transport infrastructure projects. We will explain what the geo-localized advertisement technologies are and how they could eliminate public transport deficit by creating new sources of revenues. This chapter will also show the growing importance of transportation Apps and how they influence positively the traveling experience of public and private transport users. Finally, we will present new business models that the e-mobility revolution can bring such as car sharing, car pooling, or convoying on dedicated lanes, and show how they can also solve the need for more infrastructures. We will end this chapter by focusing on the taxi industry and explain why we believe that the conventional taxi industry is doomed. Under the pressure of hailing companies using powerful Apps, regulated taxi markets will be challenged. When driverless technology will be available, conventional taxis won’t be able to compete with unmanned taxi companies proposing fares at one-fifth of the normal prices or even less if we envision a multi-point to multi-point transport model. When cars will be driverless, electric, and owned by an operator, the distinction between public and private transport will cease to exist. This doesn’t mean that taxis will disappear. On the contrary, driverless taxis are likely to become direct competitors of buses and light metro operations.

E-mobility revolves around proven technologies that have leapfrogged from other industries (i.e., telecom and IT) and thus don’t need fundamental research breakthroughs for implementation. Unlike Maglev, Hyperloop, or even flying cars technologies, whose fate we describe in this chapter, all the right forces are there for unmanned electrical vehicles to thrive. The e-mobility revolution will bring tremendous revenue opportunities for those companies that will be able to anticipate the market trends and provide product and service offering that new technologies, regulations, and fulfillment of unattended needs will generate. With so much money involved (by 2020–2025 the yearly market size for the unmanned signaling technologies alone will be around $200 billion), there is no doubt in our mind that the automotive industry will go the same way as the railway industry: electric and unmanned. No big IT corporation, industrial group, car, or railway manufacturer, and infrastructure company can ignore such a fundamental shift in urban mobility. There will definitely be winners but also market losers that will see revenue, relevancy, or brand awareness shrink or rise as a result of these new offerings. This chapter explains how the many pieces of a large puzzle fit together. It will first show the barrier to adoption to electric unmanned technology. It will then give our view on if the automotive market will grow or shrink when all cars will be driverless. Three business scenarios will be analyzed to help corporations position themselves in regard to this market: designer, licensing, and service models. The e-mobility revolution will disrupt the transportation market as we know it and will bring opportunities and threats for many potential actors. Once cars are electric, unmanned, and managed by fleet owners there will be no differentiation between public and private transport. We will give our view on a long list of potential market losers (i.e., parking owners, municipalities, car manufacturers, body shops, current PRT manufacturers, steel companies, light rail vehicle, conventional bus operation, conventional car rental industry, fossil fuel Industry, health sector, personal-injury lawyers) and winners (i.e., electric car manufacturers, environment, insurers, Government authorities, software providers, system integrators, road infrastructure companies, electrical infrastructure providers, Society).