Stefan Heck, Research Fellow at the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance was quoted in a New York Times article about autonomous vehicles and intelligent roads.

One sunny morning a few weeks ago, I slipped into the inviting cockpit of a Mercedes-Benz S550 sedan, a ride equipped with massaging front seats, reclining back seats, a heads-up display worthy of a fighter jet and more speakers than a political convention. At $136,000, this was a car fit for a rap star or a European Union functionary, of which I am neither (yet).

Instead, I write about the future, and embedded in the S550 are a host of technologies that roughly approximate the future of automobile transportation — already available, for a high price, on the road today.

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“You’re adding intelligence to every step of the system,” said Stefan Heck, a research fellow at Stanford University who explored the benefits of smart transportation last year in “Resource Revolution,” a book he wrote with Matt Rogers, a management consultant at McKinsey.

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