Instead of a smooth flow, you get drivers that do:
- high accelerations
- nervous braking
- idle engine running between 30 - 60 seconds (120 max?)
Maybe I'm asking for a problem too complex to solve, but a smooth oriented traffic organization would help. Well, that is until fossil fuels are removed from the market.
Acceleration does not waste energy (other than speed related things like wind resistance). This is a myth that is perpetuated without merit, but probably because it's typically associated with overall aggressive driving, which implies bad braking habits.
Max efficiency is typically near peak torque for internal combustion engines [0]. For EV's, electric motors are actually most efficient at higher RPMs [1].
Fuel efficiency can be measured by breaking habits alone.
Edit: sources:
[0] https://i.stack.imgur.com/RE4SM.png
[1] https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-fcf541de83bd871b9ba92d...
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=elevated+roundabouts+for+bikes+on+...
I've read tons of articles about bikes in netherlands and how they design roundabouts. But never this.
It's a bit too much in terms of landscaping impact but it must be sooo lovely to bike..
After that, encouraging building energy efficiency so aircon is not needed so often would be beneficial - well designed buildings that promote airflow without heat exchange for instance. Extra insulation and so on.
Promoting more localised towns and cities, with shared waste/water facilities is good - that datacenter heat can drive aircon or hot water for the town.
Lastly, electric cars as you've said, have many problems - care to see how 2 different companies' cars handle parking in a busy car park? ;)
The best transport option might be smartrail (similar to https://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/?m=1 but steel wheel/LIM and faster).
Smartrail and PRT are designed as a point to point separated-grade network carrying on av. 1 person or a pallette of goods. With a hanging rail you don't need heavy batteries, parking for the vehicles, you can run a pod straight into the factory to pickup goods, and large/rich places can pay to have track straight to their door.
You can prefab the rail and as land usage is just poles in the ground it can be rolled out over fields etc quickly. Track is one-way to eliminate junctions. Pods are on-demand ie. No waiting.
Accessibility improves, you can use the top of the rail to generate (solar) power, run highspeed internet cables in the rail to improve comms across a country, and save on distribution center logistics as you're going point to point.
The last mile may possibly be an issue, but forklift drones and bicycles can take most of the load I feel.
Drivers for this are that it would go fast (200mph+ as light pods so little wear), can go overnight (sleeper pods), you could buy track to your door, personal transport (like a cinema room if you want). The main real issue with cars is that there's a large lobby behind what is a legacy transport solution...
By way of example, UltraPRT has been running flawlessly at Heathrow airport for 10 years, was built on time, on budget, and performs exactly as predicted/modelled.
For more info checkout http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/ in particular Swedetrack
The last thing to mention, and the elephant in the room, is overpopulation. Looking at the stats it seems that birthrates for developed countries is in decline, so the obvious solution is to give everyone a good quality of life.
The issue here is actually at the heart of economics - how do we run an economy with an ageing demographic? Japan is the leader here and they are placing a bet on robotics. What happens though when robots consume 80% of jobs? That may be the issue we need to solve, and as you can effectively tie energy to economic prosperity on a macro scale, a solution presents itself - create more (environmentally friendly) energy sources to raise global wealth.
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/04/22/curing-your-clown...
The way I read it, the OP was talking about people needing to drive micro-cars (e.g., ones that can only hold 2 people, like the micro-cars that are only sold in Japan). Those cars would fare very poorly in a crash against just about any typical car (let alone SUV) on an American road.
The argument I was addressing was, if its really an arms race, then no way we would go from the 4800lb Ford Thunderbird to the 2600lb Ford Focus in a generation.
Folks have by and large opted out of the arms race. For better and for worse.
The 4800lb Thunderbird buyers aren't buying cars; they're buying SUVs and crossovers these days.
Ah now I see they're renaming it the 'Active'. My mistake.
However, there's still people buying cars, but usually they're foreign makes. The American carmakers have spent decades trying to prove to people that they suck at making cars and only put their effort into trucks/SUVs, and American car buyers are finally getting the message.
The Ford F150 wishes to disagree.