What a 160-year-old theory about coal predicts about our self-driving future 

After a brutal 2023, the vibes around self-driving cars are improving. Cruise, the industry leader whose vehicle was involved in a horrific San Francisco crash last fall, has rebooted under new management, while rival Waymo is expanding to serve broader swaths of the Bay Area and Los Angeles and Tesla is promising a new robotaxi service.

Although Americans say they remain wary of autonomous driving, boosters insist there is nothing to fear. In fact, they foresee roads full of self-driving cars that are both safer and cleaner than the status quo, a tantalizing prospect in a country where transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and residents are several times more likely to die in a crash than those living in other…

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