A trial in the UK resulted in customers earning up to £725/year [1]. With increased renewables on the grid leading to increased flutucations in the wholesale price of electricity, providing V2G/V2H will further reduce a customer's electricity bill on top of the savings offered by smart charging eg. Charge Anytime Tariff is 7p per kWh for EV charging [2] vs 27p kWh average Apr - Jun 2025 [3].
For some figures on demand reponse Kraken energy manage devices across Europe and the US:
"And today, to give you the exact numbers, we manage close to 400,000 devices in real time. That's about 1.6 gigawatt of power that can be turned up or down at any moment in time and space. And that's where consumer devices become really powerful." [1]
"Trump’s last trade war, with China in 2018...led to $27bn in losses for US agriculture, according to estimates by farming groups..farms received as much as $23bn in compensation from the federal government"
"According to Robert Winsloe, Eavor’s executive vice-president of origination, the company expects its AGS technology to achieve an LCOE of $75/MWh by 2029–2030"
Removing the driver does allow for single occupant models that could be significantly cheaper (reduced materials, smaller battery - assuming they'll all be EVS).
It will be interesting to see how things develop once the driver is no longer required and cost is the most important factor (after safety). Exciting times!
Taxis today are already far far larger than they need to be for two people.
Logistically you need the flexibility of having more seats available. If you’re in a rural area and need to transport a family are you going to send 4 vehicles separately?
Ironically it’s probably urban areas where single occupancy vehicles make the most sense, given that there’s always going to be sufficient demand to allow for more specialization in vehicles for different use cases.
We already have single occupant vehicles that are low cost and fun to use: bicycles and e-bikes. They are very popular in areas where safe infrastructure is available.
I'm already an avid cyclist throughout the year, but there's a real drop in the number of people cycling during the winter months. If we can get people in AVs I think this will be a real positive for cyclist for the following reasons:
1. Reduced curb space dedicated to parking. If you don't need to come back to the same vehicle you only need space to be picked up/dropped off, reducing the amount of parking spaces needed. This space could be used for separated bike lanes.
2. Safer - This is still an unknown but data looks good atm [1]. It would be even better if AVs could be design to prevent cyclists being doored that would be amazing.
Self-driving cars will eventually lower the total cost of driving and it will allow for longer commutes as people will be able to either sleep or do some work while in the vehicle.
The inevitable consequence of that is an increase of car traffic, which means more congestion, noise and air pollution (tires and brake pads). We can't know whether the theoretically lower collisions per distance traveled will translate into lower actual injuries until we know how much the distance traveled will increase.
Most importantly, the more people rely on a particular form of transport, the more they will vote to facilitate it, via more lanes, more highways, more forgiving legislation, etc.
I would rather see more active transportation and more efficient forms of transportation. Four-wheel single occupancy vehicles are just about the worst option of all.
This seems much more scaleable. Car share services (eg. Evo in Vancouver) seem like good partners as they already have the fleet management services and a recognizable (and hopefully trusted) brand.
I'm not sure about other car share services work, but in the case of Evo they have existing relationships with the cities that make up Metro Vancouver. I wonder if this would ease rollout as you'd already know all the required people to talk to within municipal government?
That is very unfortunate. I'm confused why they wouldn't want to get involved in trials and investigate all the benefits. Do you know the rationale behind the decision?
Ugh, don’t remind me of the lost decade or so during which the local taxi lobby captured the regulators and prevented the entry of Uber. It wasn’t until the provincial government was about to be blown away anyhow that they cashed in their chips in a few ridings where the majority of cab owners live…
I have no doubt that BC may be a nice place to live for a variety of reasons, but it will be the last place to have autonomous vehicles.
"In 2022, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the grid manager for most of Texas, curtailed 5% of its total available wind generation and 9% of total available utility-scale solar generation. By 2035, however, we project wind curtailments in ERCOT could increase to 13% of total available wind generation, and solar curtailments could reach 19%."
For March:
BEV registrations up from 48,388 in 2024, to 69,313 in 2025.
PHEV registrations up from 24,517 in 2024, to 33,815 in 2025.
1. https://www.smmt.co.uk/vehicle-data/car-registrations/