Impacts of Electric Adaptive Cruise Control Vehicles on Emergent Traffic Flow: A Simulation Study

While complete vehicle automation still requires further research and development to fully realize benefits like reduced travel times, enhanced traffic stability, and lower congestion and emissions, the first generation of autonomous vehicles (AVs), i.e., adaptive cruise control (ACC) vehicles, are already widespread on roadways. Despite providing user comfort, recent studies show that internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles with ACC can degrade traffic performance, increasing stop-and-go waves and reducing throughput. However, the adoption and spread of electric vehicles (EVs) may offer a viable solution due to their unique powertrain characteristics. EVs can accelerate quickly due to higher levels of instant torque and achieve high decelerations through regenerative braking combined with mechanical brakes. This study simulates a platoon of vehicles with varying mixtures of EVs and ICE vehicles, all under ACC mode, to compare and quantify the effects on traffic performance. The simulations demonstrate that EVs with ACC reduce traffic oscillations by up to 39.28% across different ACC settings, consequently improving fuel consumption for ICE vehicles in the traffic flow by up to 2.07%.