In an effort to identify their respective evolutions and how their societies, in turn, could shape the future of mobility, the Rocky Mountain Institute recently released a report evaluating the mobility ecosystems of China, India, and the United States.
Policy, economics, infrastructure, and behavioral norms were all part of the Driving a Shared, Electric, Autonomous Mobility evaluation — viewed as key factors in these transformative markets. Each of the three countries involved in the report is at different stages of development for their mobility systems, but all share the goal of leading vehicle manufacturing and intelligent mobility system growth. The Rocky Mountain Institute wants each to be able to learn from the other and further accelerate a global shift.
“Looking at the changing markets in China, India, and the U.S will help inform us in enacting our goal of proactively shaping the future of Mobility,” Garrett Fitzgerald, manager at Rocky Mountain Institute, said.
The report concluded that autonomous-driven rides could cut down on congestion and pollution in these increasingly urbanized societies. However, undertaken in isolation from, rather than in cooperation with, their respective electricity systems, electric vehicle adoption could drive costs higher. Planning is the key, and to that end, the report pushed for greater technology integration, co-development efforts, a uniform electric vehicle sales mandate, focusing EV subsidies on high-utilization vehicles, creating uniform, national guidelines for autonomous vehicle testing and encouragement of both pooling and electrification of ride-hailing services through a mix of tiered taxes and incentives, among others.
The Rocky Mountain Institute urges electrification and pooling of autonomous vehicles to cut congestion and pollution issues while keeping costs low. If autonomous efforts and electrification are undertaken separately they still have the potential for societal gains, but they might not be able to lessen congestion on their own or, in the case of autonomous vehicles, could actually lead to less equitable, more polluted mobility efforts, and lead to more congestion with which to contend.