I seriously doubt this whole thing will actually happen. The plan was made by one of the governing parties but the other party in the coalition thinks the plan is idiotic and I'm not sure there's enough backing for it overall. I for one hope to be able to drive an electric vehicle in a few years (self-driving or not; but the Dutch road network probably really need this kind of solution to the congestion problems it has) but there are all kinds of smaller hurdles. It still takes a bit too long to charge mid-trip but I'm not entirely sure I could charge at home, not having a driveway (and probably be disallowed by regulation to just leaving a cable laying across the street where I park). Or at work, actually we don't really have any kind of parking provided by my employer (which is the government in this case). I dunno if I have to add 20 minutes a day to my commute to charge the batteries. Some also say our electric network cannot really handle the shift from fossil fuels to electricity in terms of bandwidth. Again, I hope to see this happen but we need a whole lot of people on the bandwagon or it's not going to happen in the time period the plan describes (but I do think it'll happen sooner or later).
Also, the primary downsides to electric vehicles -- longer refuel times, reduced range -- are mostly irrelevant when a computer is doing it by itself. Nobody cares if their self-driving taxi spends 10 minutes recharging itself between every pickup.
What does engine complexity have to do with driving complexity? I imagine that a computer would drive a car using interfaces analogous to those we use; namely gas, brake, steer (and I guess a shifter to put it in drive).
From the self-driving computer's perspective they are the same. Running the engine by computer is a solved problem.
There's limited road to use, so you'll still hit finite limits; if limits are reached, congestion charges will be used to bring demand inline with roadway supply.
I drive a hybrid. Except for a few parts of my commute, cruise control and slow acceleration push me from 42 mpg to 50 mpg on my commute.
Obeying the speed limit is irrelevant; the actual speed is. A given car at a given speed consumes the same amount of fuel per unit distance regardless of what the speed limit is.
All the data indicating that "speeding wastes fuel" is basically just proving that fuel economy is a function of engine power output.
Driving at the speed limit will definitely save you more fuel than speeding.
Actually, the sweet spot is dependent on the design and condition of the car. I'm not sure where exactly it is, but I think you are right that it is usually around 40.
> Driving at the speed limit will definitely save you more fuel than speeding.
How does a number on a sign affect how much fuel I'm burning? If, as you indicated, the sweet spot for my car is 40 but the speed limit is 30, how am I saving fuel by going 30 instead of 40? What if the speed limit is 65? If they drop it to 60 am I suddenly using more fuel? If they increase it to 70 can I now go faster without using more? The speed limit is totally irrelevant to fuel consumption.
>How does a number on a sign affect how much fuel I'm burning?
I never claimed that it would. I said "Driving at the speed limit will definitely save you more fuel than speeding.", which is definitely true. If you speed you are going faster and using more fuel.
That statement has nothing to do with the speed limit, though. It may be trivially true, but adding the speed limit ties an irrelevant variable to it. Speed limit is a semi-arbitrary number that has nothing to do with how much fuel a car uses and how efficiently it uses it.
Not necessarily, because of gear changes. Not all cars can use 5th gear in a 50km/h zone, so they'll drive in 4th gear. It seems likely that doing 60km/h in 5th gear is more efficient than 50km/h in 4th gear.
Funny, I had always heard 55 MPH was the "sweet spot".
Drag Coefficient will be dramatically different on all car models.
Driving slower can have as dramatic of an impact on MPG as driving too fast. Your engine has to work quite hard to keep the car moving in both cases. Once up to a cruising speed, your engine will have to work less hard (and burn less gas) to maintain momentum. This is why your foot is not on the accelerator pedal harder while cruising on the highway when compared to driving on the streets. This is also part of the reason overdrive gears work (<1:1 ratio).
From a dead-stop, you dump the most unburned hydrocarbons (as a bunch of fuel is dumped into the chamber suddenly). So, constant highway driving will be more efficient than a slower city-street driver.
Exponential with regards of the speed? That sounds odd. So I looked it up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_equation
F = (1/2) * \rho * u^2 * C * A
F: drag force
u: flow velocity relative to the object
Further, IC cars often get better fuel efficiency by mixing slow acceleration periods at optimum RPM and coasting. (Car engines get ~10-30 efficiency based on usage.) You can do this manually, but it's hard.
However, air resistance is going to be the dominate factor at high speeds.
I'm not ignoring braking. Aggressive driving wastes a lot of fuel, but aggressive driving happens regardless of the posted speed limit. In fact, that rapid acceleration-brake cycle is more likely to happen when the flow of traffic is below the speed limit.
> Further, IC cars often get better fuel efficiency by mixing slow acceleration periods at optimum RPM and coasting. (Car engines get ~10-30 efficiency based on usage.) You can do this manually, but it's hard.
I don't think it's hard. It just requires paying attention to the traffic around you.
Partially off-topic, but it feels very weird when people put electric and self-driving cars into the same basket. Those are 2 different problems. There're electric cars which are not self driving. There're cars aiming to be self-driving, that are not electric.