Would You Drive an Extra Five Minutes to Save the Planet?
Google Maps eco-routing feature wants to help me conserve two teaspoons of gas. All my life, I thought there was just one way to get to my hometowns ShopRite: right on Fair Street, right on Gleneida Avenue, right into the parking lot. That was until I plugged ShopRite into Google Maps. Now I had two options. I could turn right into the parking lot in front of the grocery store or, if I felt compelled, enter closer to Golds Gym and cut across the asphalt sea. Either route would take four minutes, the app said, but the latter earned the Google Maps eco-mode seal of approval: a little green leaf. A blurb informed me that I would save 6 percent gas by turning into the lot before, rather than after, the spot where my mom takes Bodypump classes. I could do my part to save the world. Its been two years since Google announced its Maps eco-routing feature. For all trips by car in the U.S., Canada, and much of Europe, the app defaults to recommending the most environmentally friendly route, as long as its not that much slower than the alternative. If the time difference between routes is negligible, the app defaults to the one that saves gas. The features launch was met with significant internal buzz. Googles CEO, Sundar Pichai, said that it could save over one million tons of carbon emissions per yearthe equivalent of removing over 200,000 cars from the road. That sounds great. But those numbers are less impressive when you consider that the EPA estimated on-road-vehicle emissions of about 1.5 billion tons of CO2 last year, and that nearly 103 million cars were registered in the United States in 2021. The tiny green leaf may help the planet a little, but it might also make things worse by giving drivers like me a false sense of accomplishment as we continue destroying the planet with gas-guzzling personal vehicles. Eco-mode is a little nudge in a time when little nudges just dont feel like enougha sign of how much inconvenience any of us is actually willing to suffer in order to mitigate climate change. The question of how much eco-mode is actually changing drivers behavior is difficult to answer. For one thing, the green routes that Google recommends are, in many cases, exactly the same routes it wouldve offered anyway. The fastest route and the most fuel-efficient one are the same the vast majority of the time, Rosa Wu, a product manager at Google Maps, told me, though the company was unable to provide any precise numbers. In cases where there are multiple options, Wu said, eco-mode does make it easier for drivers to choose a more sustainable route when planning a trip. Read: EVs are sending toxic tire particles into the water, soil, and air When I talked with David Reichmuth, a senior engineer in the Clean Transportation program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, he asked the app for directions from his Oakland, California, home to his parents house in Petaluma, about 45 miles northwest. The result was fantastic: It says right now that I will save 62 percent gas, he told me about the 40-minute trip. But the alternative was a roundabout two-hour journey that took him south to San Jose, north through San Francisco, and over the Golden Gate Bridge (and avoided a $7 toll). So I guess, yes, he said, you do save 60 percent over driving the wrong way. When eco-modes recommendations do differ from the fastest route available, estimating how much gas is saved is not trivial. To calculate its eco routes, Google Maps relies on a vehicle-energy-consumption model co-created by Jacob Holden, a research scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Predicting how much gas a certain vehicle will consume at a certain speed on a certain path is a fairly simple engineering problem, Holden told me, but its harder to transfer this information when road conditions, and peoples individual driving styles, are unpredictable. You and I and 1,000 of our friends could drive the same stretch of road, and well all drive it a little bit differently, he told me. Still, he thinks eco-modes predictions are roughly accurate; one paper he co-authored in 2018 found that the NRELs current methodology should accurately select the route that consumes the least fuel 90% of the time. We also have no way of knowing the net climate impact of eco-mode other than to take Googles word for it. Konstantinos Katsikopoulos, a behavioral-science professor at the University of Southampton, wanted to see more data on the 200,000-car figure especially. Though a 200-word endnote in Googles 2023 environmental report outlines how the company reached that figure, it doesnt include the raw data. Maybe theyre assuming that nobodys interested to know more or they couldnt understand it, he told me. But to him, it mostly seemed opaque. Read: Google Maps failed attempt to get people to lose weight Eco-modes impact may be small, at least so far, but wide-scale eco-nudges could cumulatively play a role in reducing overall emissions. A 2022 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, according to a summary by one of its co-chairs, concluded that having the right policies, infrastructure and technology in place to enable changes to our lifestyles and behaviour can result in a 4070% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Google Maps isnt helping people buy electric vehicles, retrofit their houses with energy-efficient technologies, or install heat pumpschanges that would undoubtedly carry a much larger benefitbut its still a behavior change. If small reminders incorporated into tools people already use in their daily lives could make a real dent in emissions, the world might indeed warm more slowly. And in that sense, eco-modes successes are as instructive as its shortcomings. But that doesnt mean people will use it when the more sustainable choice is actually slower. Holden told me that, on his own trips, hell more often than not take the eco-route, but its not always great. There are certainly times where Ill be given a route thats recommended as efficient and we'll just kind of chuckle at the impracticality, he told me. If the app instructs him to avoid the highway in favor of a slightly longer drive through a series of stoplights, hell believe the recommendationits based on his own model, after allbut still drive the highway route. And I think thats really interesting, he said. Me of all people, Im reaching that conclusion. To impress the benefits of the eco-routes upon drivers like Holden, Google is considering retooling how its eco-routes are presented, Wu told me. Maps doesnt display emissions estimatessuch as carbon-dioxide equivalentbecause theyre confusing for regular drivers, she said. When we were doing research, we found that users had no conception of emissions. But the percentages might not be persuasive enough to change peoples behavior. Instead of saves 2% gas, the company is thinking of presenting potential financial savings at some point take this route, spend four more minutes driving, and save $1.45 . Kate Brandt, Googles chief sustainability officer, told me repeatedly that the goal of programs like eco-mode and Google Flights carbon-footprint calculation (which estimates how many kilograms of CO2 Ill contribute to the atmosphere depending on which flight I pick) is to provide helpful information that people are seeking. But as I scrolled through Maps over the past few weeks, I wondered who was seeking some of the information Google offered: the route to upstate New York that would take 40 more minutes and, depending on the time of day, possibly save me 2 percent on emissions; the ShopRite parking-lot maneuver that would save a couple of teaspoons of gas. Read: America is missing out on the biggest EV boom of all If Google Maps is so intent on showing me the greenest way to get to the grocery store, its eco-friendly nod would perhaps more helpfully be directed toward a non-driving option. Though Google Maps provides helpful walking, biking, public-transit, and mixed-mode directions, no amount of industrious trekking will earn you a green leaf. Reichmuth thinks this is a mistake. When he pulled up routes from his home to San Franciscos Oracle Park, he wondered why Google bestowed the eco seal of approval on any driving route when he could take public transit, get there in about the same amount of time, and not waste minutes and fuel parking. Holden, despite his gas-use models, felt similarly. The actual solution here is to get on your bike and go to Trader Joes, he said. That will be the most efficient path.