Autonomous Electric Vehicles - Data Centers on the Wheel

Autonomous electric vehicles (AEVs) are at the forefront of modern transportation, merging automation with sustainability to enhance efficiency and safety while reducing environmental impact. However, these vehicles face significant challenges in balancing the energy demands of autonomous compute systems with propulsion efficiency and vehicle range. The sensors, LiDAR, cameras, and AI inference hardware required for Level 4 autonomy draw significant continuous compute power - entirely separate from propulsion. This power is comparable to a server-class GPU - making each AEV, in effect, a data center on wheels. This presentation explores that compute energy load, examines how it scales across projected global AV fleets, and compares it with the energy consumption and CO? emissions of global data centers. The presentation concludes with current challenges and future trends in the key enabling technologies - next-generation batteries, wide-bandgap power electronics, high-efficiency electric machines, and can scale without proportionally scaling its energy and emissions footprint.

Speaker: Kaushik Rajashekara, University of Houston