Self-driving cars have power consumption problems

I recently chaired a UJA Tech Talk on "The Future Of Autonomous Cars" with former General Motors Vice-Chairman Steve Girsky. The auto executive enthusiastically shared his vision for the next 15-25 years of driving – a congestion-free world of automated wheeled capsules zipping commuters to and from work. Girsky stated that connected cars with safety assist (autonomy-lite) features are moving much faster toward mass adoption than fully autonomous vehicles (sans steering wheels and pedals). In his opinion, the largest roadblocks toward a consumer-ready robocar are the current technical inefficiencies of prototypes on the road today, which burn huge amounts of energy supporting enhanced computing and arrays of sensors. This makes the sticker price closer to a 1972 Ferrari than a 2018 Prius.