The Latest in Transportation Tech: What You Need to Know

and it’s packed with new data and info on the latest vehicle and fuel technologies. This update, which is the first of its kind, brings in expanded cost and performance data to help us understand the transportation sector better. The ATB, which was first released in 2020, is a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory. It’s designed to provide detailed cost and performance data, estimates, and assumptions for current and future vehicle and fuel technologies in the United States up to 2050.

Laura Vimmerstedt, the lead of the ATB, mentioned that the update broadens the scope of the analyses it can support, covering more diverse vehicle and fuel technologies and providing more detailed data for robust analyses. The goal of the ATB is to integrate data from various sources into an accessible format that provides a consistent set of key assumptions for transportation analysis. This work is supported by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, including the Strategic Analysis Team, Bioenergy Technologies Office, Vehicle Technologies Office, and Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office.

So, what’s new in this update? Well, the ATB now provides vehicle data in a series of interactive charts for either a single year or a trajectory out to 2050 for fuel economy, modeled vehicle price, levelized cost of driving, and emissions. These metrics are available for a variety of individual powertrains, as well as in comparison with other powertrains. The update also expands upon the available vehicle technologies to include additional classes of light-duty vehicles and introduces data for select medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, along with their associated powertrains. And that’s not all—there’s also new data for current and future projections of fuel consumption, cost, and emissions in domestic, commercial aviation for passenger and freight transport in the United States. This includes data for both conventional and sustainable aviation fuel.

In addition to the vehicle data, the ATB provides fuels data, with this update offering price or cost, production, and emissions estimates for selected fuels in four new categories: on-road fuels, blendstocks, marine fuels, and the newly added aviation fuels.

If you want to learn more about this exciting update, there’s a free webinar on December 14, 2023, from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. MST (11 a.m.–12 p.m. EST). The presenters will describe the updates in detail, share examples of how to use the data, and provide an opportunity for attendees to ask questions. You can register for the webinar and get all the details about the Transportation Annual Technology Baseline update. Don’t miss out on this chance to stay up-to-date with the latest in transportation technology!