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Are self-driving cars electric?

I’ve been thinking about getting an electric vehicle to lower my carbon footprint, but I’m also really interested in the self-driving car industry. Are all self-driving cars electric?

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Amber Reed · Updated on
Reviewed by Shannon Martin, Licensed Insurance Agent.
If you’re worried about your carbon footprint, there’s good news! All of the self-driving cars currently on the market are either electric or hybrids. Hybrid vehicles run on both electric power and gasoline.
Electric vehicle experts predict that all self-driving cars will be fully electric in the future—and industry leaders like Tesla and Waymo have already committed to manufacturing vehicles that exclusively run on electricity.
We’re not going to see a transition to all-electric autonomous vehicles just yet, however—all those sensors and computer systems use a lot of power, which means a fully-electric self-driving car may not get very far on a single charge. But as research teams continue to improve the software used in autonomous vehicles, we’re getting closer and closer to eco-friendly, fully electric, self-driving cars.
For now, if you purchase any hybrid or electric vehicle you can feel confident that it’ll produce lower emissions than a gasoline-powered car. And if you want to keep driving it until you can buy a next-gen, fully-electric autonomous car, protect it with great
car insurance
.
Whether your car runs on gas, electricity, or both, the
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