EVs Will Not Gain Significant Market Share… Says OPEC
Originally published on Gas2.
To hear the people who run OPEC tell it, the world will continue to consume oil in prodigious quantities for at least the next 50 years, come Hell or rising sea levels. Basically, it thinks the people of the world are too stupid and too weak to stop burning fossil fuels. EVs? Forget about them. Never gonna happen, says OPEC in a new 470 page report.
“Without a technology breakthrough, battery electric vehicles are not expected to gain significant market share in the foreseeable future,” it said. “Electric cars cost too much. Their range is too short. The batteries are defective in hot or cold conditions.” Even though battery prices may fall 50% or more over the next 20 years, EVs will not appeal to mainstream shoppers due to “consumer resistance,” the report says.
OPEC does acknowledge the climate accord reached earlier this month in Paris may signal trouble for the coal industry, but thinks oil production will continue on at about the same level far into the future. In fact, it salivates over the prospect of a some global crisis that will increase demand and drive prices higher again. Who knows? Maybe GM will revive the Hummer brand, so Americans can drive 10 mile per gallon pseudo-armored vehicles to work again.
The inevitability of price fluctuations is one of the leading factors driving a shift away from fossil fuels. The price of sunlight and wind never changes — both are free and will be forever. Two winters ago, Americans were paying $4.00 a gallon for heating oil. Today, the price is less than half that. The uncertainty of future prices is one of the factors driving the market for rooftop residential solar.
The world’s major automakers are pouring billions into making better EVs. China wants 90% of new cars to be electric soon. Geely Motors says it will hit that target just 5 years from now. Audi, Volkswagen, Mercedes and BMW are rushing plug-in hybrid and electric cars to market. Ford and GM are stepping up their investments in electric cars. The Japanese manufacturers are betting heavily on fuel cell technology.
The number of cars in the world is projected to increase rapidly in coming decades, but most of them will not run on gasoline. Where does OPEC think its projected growth in the oil market is going to come from? People may still doubt the science about rising sea levels and melting ice caps, but from Beijing to Paris, Milan to Rome, polluted air is telling residents that they are being slowly poisoned by the very air they breathe. People can’t see the oceans flooding Pago Pago, but they can feel the burning in their lungs as they gasp their way through the work day.
15 years ago, former Saudi oil minister, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, said in an interview with the Telegraph that a moment of reckoning was coming for the oil industry. He specifically mentioned fuel cell technology as one of the principal factors that would alter the energy landscape. “Thirty years from now there will be a huge amount of oil — and no buyers,” he said. “Oil will be left in the ground. The Stone Age came to an end, [but] not because we had a lack of stones.”
Within OPEC, nobody is listening to Sheikh Yamani’s words today.
Reprinted with permission.
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Our Latest EVObsession Video
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
Oil 40 years into the future !! They are crazy. At the moment the oil industry is at the brink of bankruptcy and the price of producing oil is increasing as the easy to explore oil has been used first. Renewables are dropping fast in price and the point where excess electricity and abundant CO2 could become the cheapest raw material for the petro chemical industry in the next decade.
If all the only card the oil cartel has to play is lowered prices and if they have to resort to underhanded phony estimates like this, they are running out of aces up their sleeves.
Fuel cells over batteries.
This projections has not base.
If “OPEC does acknowledge the climate accord reached earlier this month in Paris may signal trouble for the coal industry” Why does it show the coal share of energy rising in figure 1.11?
Wishful delusion?
Quite possible! 🙂
Never underestimate the power of wishful delusion to bring about change.
An enemy that is blissfully unaware of the real challenges ahead, will be poorly prepared when the war commences.
(Say this in your best Confucian accent for maximum effect.)
If they publicly admit it, their stock will plummet, and it will be too late to get out. These sorts of reports also have at least some effect on peoples plans (either to buy an EV, or to support building/designing one for the car maker). So they are hoping if thet see no eveil, the rest of the world will be more likely to also be blind.
Yes. They are trying to confuse investors into not seeing their race for the lifeboats on the Titanic. Divestment has more than one phase. When investors find out oil is bad stock….
“No, no, nothing to worry about – stay in your seats. This ship will sink the iceberg… Oh me? Don’t mind me, I’m just going to a leisurely paddle boat ride. Everyone else, just stay right where you are…”
If they showed coal consumption declining, people would ask (even more) questions about whether oil and gas were next, which would immediately result in the OPEC reason for existing disappearing.
As there is evidence that global coal consumption declined in 2015 I suggest the graph is already out of date.
I’d say the jury is still out on coal. Read India’s plans for coal power generation. They alone can drive and sustain coal markets.
Paris threatens to derail those plans. But only if the West gives India billions annually to develop alternatives.
Can you list the gigawatt-scale coal generating plants in India started in the last two years? Thought not. Reliance, Tata and Adani have the plans, all right. But they keep finding excuses not to start construction. Google UMPPs.
India’s offer to cut its fantasy coal plans if the West offers $$$bns is a try-on. The current wave of solar and wind projects are finding commercial finance without trouble. The subsidised cheap money should go to the really poor countries like Ethiopia.
The rate of growth between 2015 and 2040 for coal is much lower than the rate of growth was between 2000 and 2015. That is all the “impact” they are willing to see,
Figure 2.13 is totally worthless because all those square boxes with dark colors look the same.
I thought I was going color blind!
Guess the two of you are suffering from protanopia. Here’s a hint, the boxes are ordered the same as the color zones.
Or perhaps you just suffer from chronic crankiness….. ;o)
Maybe. But I’m using a small screen and not bothering to expand it out. Just in case I took a color blindness test here:
http://enchroma.com/test/#&ui-state=dialog
It’s just a badly designed figure. They need to pay more attention to what they are doing.
I often encounter images where the desire to look “pretty” lessens the function of communicating information. This is an example where a bit more careful color selection could increase readability.
Or maybe, the graphical representation of the information is deliberately obtuse, to deter critical analysis?
Many people will inherently just trust a graph, because it’s all “scientific and maths and stuff” and must therefore be true, especially if it’s official, like from OPEC. Which is like a nacronym thingy, like NASA, and other important government stuff. Capital letters are good. USA! USA!
Perhaps it’s simply supposed to represent a boring, business as usual approach to what we can expect from the future? “Everything stays the same, but just grows a bit more, in a steady way, for the next few decades. And here are the official statistics to prove it (buried in this very long and inscrutable study).”
Basically, everything’s going to be just fine and you can all go back to eating your sugary breakfast cereals and driving your SUVs. Just relax. We’ve got your backs. We’ve done all the complicated maths so that you don’t have to. No need to fuss about all that highfalutin “climate change” stuff that the politicians are trying to ram down your throats so they can raise your taxes. We’ll all be okay. And we have an ACTUAL GRAPH to prove it.
One of the best classes I ever took was dedicated to presenting data for research funding. It would have given Mark Twain a much better appreciation of the possible lies, err, ways of presenting the interesting aspects behind the numbers…
Color-blind or not, those colors are very poorly chosen. There’s no reason to have the colors for BEVs and LPGs so similar, or for that matter those for FCEVs and gasmobiles. And speaking of LPGs (whatever they are–propane burners?) where are they on the actual chart? Don’t see ’em anywhere except the legend.
And I must respectfully disagree with the idea that the legend and chart are in the same order; seems to me that the top stratum of the chart is not FCEVs, as in the legend, but rather CNG vehicles.
It’s a royal mess. But at least it’s consistent with the quality of the analysis itself. Honestly, it’s enough to make anybody cranky! (Well, not you, Bob, but you are actually patient enough to moderate this here shindig, so you don’t count.)
You have no idea how cranky moderating this site makes me. It’s a good thing for dogs that I don’t have one to kick….
(Actually, that’s not true. Dogs mellow me out.)
—
And, yes, the bars and boxes don’t line up. I just looked at the bottom part.
Well, at least we appreciate your efforts, even if we probably say so far too seldom.
Actually, I think we have some idea, Bob… 😉
Yes! Indeed we do…
😉
It shows?
They are totally doing this on purpose in hopes that the investors just give up trying to read the diagram and keep investing in Oil.
“Man is not a rational animal. He is a rationalizing animal.”
Even very intelligent and wealthy individuals tend to rationalize their own short term gain. People find it very difficult to step away from their current source of gold.
Several companies (i can name five, all different approaches) project production cost of $100/kWh for lithium batteries by 2022. EVs will then be better deal hands down. Game over.
Take it for what it’s worth, but Chevy is claiming that the Bolt’s batteries will cost $145 / kWh:
http://evobsession.com/gm-145-kwh-battery-costs-bolt-ev-launch/
Tesla’s gigafactory might even achieve lower costs by 2017. 2022 for $100/kWh batteries might be a bit too late.
It is not the batteries, but the cells for them. There are costs on top to make the finished batteries out of the cells.
Isn’t that a bit of rationalizing in itself
There are more than 1bn vehicles in the world, even selling 1 million EVs a year is going to take 1000 years to replace them, 50 years is too optimistic.
I failed to hear the news that the World Government has legislated that only one million EVs can be sold per year.
Wonder why it wasn’t covered here?
Because that is the current sells rate. And at current prices it is not going anywhere higher. Then most of the world live in multistore condos, they can not charge at home I doubt they they would want to spend half an hour in the morning going to work and it is impossible to install several handred charges near every condo.
Oh, so the news is that progress has now ceased. Got it.
There will be no $37,500, 200+ mile Bolt next year nor no $35,000, 200+ mile Mod3 following it. There will be no $130/kWh and $145/kWh batteries later in this year. And after 2016 batteries and EVs will not become so inexpensive that it will be cheaper to purchase EVs than ICEVs.
SoCal Edison, PG&E and other utilities will not assist in installing charge outlets in apartment, condo and workplace parking lots like they were starting to do.
I guess EVs are going to suffer the same fate that befell the computers. After the Apple II was introduced all progress stopped and we’re still running 12 mHz clock speeds and storing on floppy disks….
Oooh, such a snarky start to the new year…albeit, well earned by “truth” hurts.
Your very US centric perspective is really not applicable elsewhere. Sure, OPEC is wrong. But a $37.5k car (EV or otherwise) is luxury for most of the world.
Think of the Tata Nano. $4k – $6k. That’s the price level to get to kill of gasoline cars entirely.
Thats precisely why US is the biggest oil consumer and the biggest problem. Because it has the income to spend on private transportation. And thats why the average car price at nearly 30k is still affordable in the US and why a 35k EV matters. And why none of that matters for China and India. Because they just don’t consume that much oil.
Where are you getting your info? China now produces nearly as many as cars as US and Japan combined. China produces twice as many as cars as the USA.
And while the Chinese don’t drive as much, aggregate demand from all those cars is causing Chinese demand for oil to rise.
Gave it before. Did you miss it?
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=91&t=10
US uses more than twice as much oil as China. Thats big even if China eventually uses more.
In a few years when batteries are down to $100/kWh or lower we can probably build a limited range Nano EV for less.
Thats true. It killed itself off. LOL.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/03/tata-nano-car-cheap-poor-safety-rating
No. Not even in India will people touch a cheap car with a zero star safety rating. No matter what you do, a real car is expensive. Even in India.
The Tata Nano was a bad idea in the first place. I said so when it came out. For 3000€ you can buy a good used car which will last longer.
By the time the Nano was introduced electric scooters where all the rage in Asia.
The comparisons to the original VW Beetle where idiotic…. there was no used car market back then to cater that segment and car safety was nothing that really existed.
Check out the recent data coming from China.
“Small and cheap” electric vehicles are growing market share there at mind-boggling speed. And they’re already expanding to other (developing) countries. Brands you may never even have heard of, depending on where you are.
I’m sure Bob can send you some links.
(Don’t wanna post links here because it means my comments are held over for moderation for multiple hours, due to time zones)
In the meantime, you might try googling “Zotye Zhidou”.
A quote from, http://www.worldometers.info/computers/, “And with PC adoption in emerging markets growing fast, it is estimated that there will be more than two billion PCs in use by 2015, Forrester predicts. Therefore, whereas it took 27 years to reach the one billion mark, it will take only 7 to grow from 1 billion to 2 billion.”
Hmm, computers are relatively cheap. The world population is about 7 billion.
Electric buses here and in China?
Electric motorcycle sales are in the millions, primarily in poorer countries. Harbinger of what’s in store with EVs.
One billion vehicles in the world, but a sales rate of 1M per year? Say what? An estimated 72M cars are going to be sold in 2015, and EV sales have been growing exponentially for the past 5 years, with 300M being sold last year alone.
Assuming a very conservative 10% year on year growth in EV sales, 300M EV in 2015 would be 8.43M sold per year in 2050. And there are still gigantic unknowns regarding vehicle autonomy that could actually lead to a stabilization of total vehicle population or even a potential decrease.
When you’re on a technology site, it doesn’t pay to assume that everything is going to stay the exact same as it is today…
Over four hundred thousand EVs were sold in 2015, which is promising … but not quite as impressive as three hundred million 😉
Touche, thanks for the edit. I’d say 300M was wishful thinking, but that would be retchedly excessive in terms of resources consumed.
No reason flat/apartment/condo car parks cannot get charge points. The market is just going for the low hanging fruit of charge points in houses. There’s a lot less issues there. No management companies to deal with.
At current prices? Thats the problem with your thinking. Its all about now and anticipates no change. Completely linear, no growth. The world doesn’t work that way. Its non-linear compound growth. Thats an exponential.
Same with prices. Instead of looking at what they are today, you have to look at what rate prices decline and estimate tipping points. EV costs are dropping as volume increases and as storage prices drop. EV batteries are nearing the tipping point.
When they do that, you should see rapid adoption as with any competitive tech.
The first curve is a log graph of growth, so straight lines are exponentials.
http://rameznaam.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/li-ion-battery-improvement-curve1.jpg
http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/1173/3357/original.jpg
And where do they go TO, all these people, when they leave their condos in the morning?
Going to WORK, as you said.
Where companies could install charging for their workers.
Hmmm… not such a big problem after all, then.
May want to change your username there. I’m not hurting at all.
As cost of EVs decreases linearly, sales will increase exponentially. Same as we have been seeing for Solar PV. EVs will be cheaper to purchase than ICEVs by the end of this decade. EVs are already cheaper to operate and maintain and already better deal (more economically sensible) in total for some people. Obviously, they are still improving.
A prediction is not the truth, merely a wild-ass-guess. Let’s see whom the truth will hurt the most, say, 10 years from now.
Oh you are so wrong. If that were true it would have taken a thousand years for the vehicles we have now. Its called compound growth. Practically nothing grows or decays at a linear rate as you assumed.
Start with the concept of doubling rates and learn powers of 2. The number of EVs is doubling at what rate?
As an example, solar is doubling every two years. If the total absolute amounts don’t change we can double percentages. So if solar is 1% today, and doubles every 2 years, it would reach 100% in 14 years, provided the total energy didn’t change. But don’t worry if energy use doubled. It would only take 2 years to get there.
So how fast would EVs have to grow to get to 100% in 35 years? They would have to double every 5 years. Thats already happening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY
http://foresightinvestor.com/articles/554942-startfragment-the-rise-of-ev-amp-hybrid-cars-endfragment-nbsp-nbsp-br
http://mountaintownnews.net/2015/08/20/tony-sebas-startling-view-of-market-disruptions/
Take a good look at the two photos in the article linked above. In 1900, there is not a car to be seen on New York’s fifth avenue – the traffic is entirely horse drawn. In 1913, it’s a case of ‘spot the horse’.
A eveee describes below, change is not a linear process.
If truth hurts, you must be feeling no pain.
Source for your billion vehicles? If it’s true, it must include two-wheelers, even bicycles. EV numbers conventionally do not include electric bikes, which sell by the million in China.
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1065070_its-official-we-now-have-one-billion-vehicles-on-the-planet
This is old news from 2010 data and is motor vehicles not including off road or construction machinery.
EVs, PHEVs, HEVs. higher mileage with synthetic and bio synthetic fuels will bring the consumption of OPEC oil down,
World Oil Report of OPEC is released every year and usually is not a fortune-teller document, but extrapolates in a greedy manner the current energy status quo for the future.Why Every extrapolation process is wrong for the ending points in the plots, because of god and mathematics BUT if this extrapolation is made in a greedy manner over-pessimistic manner, it is extremely accurate for a small amount of time(e.g. one year) enough for the next report is released. According to such extrapolation, you could clearly observe how much will rise the amount of EVs, renewables for that short period and secure your investment plans.
It is like, that you know that you have 30 football games and a final game against ManU, and if you want to win against ManU, you need to invest money in football players, lose some games for preparation and recovery or gave up and concentrate to other games, but there is no reason to blame yourself for the strategy if the whole team of ManU get sick at the moment of the game. Extrapolation of plans is good only according to close moment of current sutuation.
You could bet that this report next year will state different figure about renewables, this year they state 4 percent of overall energy generation to be from solar and wind in 2040 which is quite sober expectation – at least for sure such will happen. If something on the market is changing – new technology, new products(e.g. nuclear fusion), world wars, geo-politics, no extrapolation could predict those AND again if you check the previous year reports such digits are different and particularly lower. But believe me, following plots given in previous years, you will be amazed how accurate they are for close to that report times and very unaccurate for 10 years.
So, read it carefully it tells a lot of things for the future and future probably looks bright for earth.
Could have used a better color spread… The charts are confusing… I’m getting color blindness from this that it overwhelms the issue that needs to be discussed.
I think that these are the last gasps of delusion that OPEC is spreading to at least recover stock value in the fossil fuel industries. It gives us a good hint about the direction of their propaganda and we have to use this knowledge to our advantage. Let us continue to campaign for divestment from fossil fuels!
Often I read about people who buy an EV and soon say “I can never go back to internal combustion”. So it seems more people need to spend time in an EV for a week or so. A very wide spread one week EV rental program should be promoted, subsidized to make it ridiculously cheap. That sets the experience in motion. No risk try outs.
For fun, I did my own version of the graph – The colours are the defaults in excel.
Sorry if it doesn’t display properly – my first time at pasting a diagram!
Whoops – that didn’t work. Here’s the data I was using – My guesses using the same dates and values as above.
GAS – 800,1000,900,700,500,200,100,10,0,0
Deisel – 180,80,10,0,0,0,0,0,0,0
Hybrid – 50,100,150,150,100,50,10,0,0,0
LPG – 10,10,5,5,0,0,0,0,0,0
CNG – 5,2,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0
BEV – 10,50,200,800,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000
Fuel Cell – 0,2,10,5,2,0,0,0,0,0
Just…can’t….resist……
Resistance is useless – You WILL use excell!
You will also tell me how to get the picture in and I’ll post the graph!
When you select reply click on the little photo picture bottom left. This should take you to local files on your computer. Select the file you want and it should pop it up here.
So It does – Thanks
A much more reasonable prediction.
Thanks, It’s based on:-
1. Gasoline cars will gradually fade away as more affordable BEVs come to market.
2.Diesel will drop quite sharply due to deiselgate.
3. Hybrid will increase until better BEVs come along then fade away as people switch to BEVs
4. LPG – A niche market at the best of times
5. CNG – Also a niche market
6. BEV – Will grow and then plateau as more self-driving cars change people’s usage. They’ll get a “taxi” rather than owning a seperate car.
7.Fuel Cell – Will grow a bit as a few manufacturers make cars etc but will fade away as BEVs are shown to be better.
Anything I’ve missed?
Diesel cars won’t go away. Why would they? People won’t stop buying them.
Diesel cars have taken a terrific knock due to the VW scandal which has woken up a lot of people to the fact that they are heavy polluters and not the “clean alternative to petrol” they had been sold as.
Whether they can recover from this hit remains to be seen, but I expect their popularity to drop once BEVs become mainstream.
I may have misjudged the severity of that drop and they’ll be around for a while yet, but I think they’ll drop off before gasoline cars.
Only where they had a small market share to begin with. Probably even not there. Most people don’t know that it is about Diesel cars but believe it is about all cars.
Germans don’t care at all like the rest of Europe, no (VW) Diesel models in China…
VW will keep selling, little sales lost. Porsche just had the best year in its history.
Let’s be realistic. Sometimes living in the cleantechnica bubble isn’t a good basis for predictions.
Hope I am wrong though.
Updated Graph to show more diesel sales
Better. I also fear the decline in gasoline cars won’t happen so rapidly or that early.
Updated again
Can you post the spreadsheet? I’d lake to try a prediction but I’m too lazy to start a new one…
And I’m too lazy to repeat data 🙂
Just copy my earlier post into excell (or your favourite spreadsheet program) and set up a chart from the data.
There’s no working out behind the graph – just me typing those numbers.
Best not to put too much faith too soon in historical inevitability. We don’t have all century.
I read this report a few days ago on this website – http://oilprice.com/ although sadly I can’t find the arcticle. I haven’t stopped chuckling yet 🙂
This isn’t even an accurate projection of the current exponential curve for solar power. If you project the exponential trend from *1976* for solar power (which gives you a pretty slow growth rate) you get higher numbers than this. If you project the exponential trend from 1990, you get much higher numbers than this.
Yeah, OPEC is telling stories to make themselves feel good.
Bahaha – the nuclear growth in Figure 1.11 is a hoot. Talk about destroying the credibility of your study.
There’s been virtually no growth in nuclear capacity for years, and even the World Nuclear Association, who are likely to be the most optimistic about nuclear, are forecasting growth of nuclear capacity in the absolute best case to grow 125% over the next 25 years (about 3.2% per year compound), which assumes there are no more critical nuclear incidents, which might be optimistic given the aging nuclear infrastructure currently in service.
Meanwhile Solar and Wind have been growing in the double digits each year and costs have continued to fall while efficiency continues to rise. Nevermind the coming storm of energy storage that is going to catapult renewables into the role of peak energy smoothing that will kneecap natural gas peaker plants. That’s just a couple of the many of glaring logical issues with the study.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/current-and-future-generation/plans-for-new-reactors-worldwide/
You know OPEC is losing the battle when they open the oil spigot and lower the oil prices in response to dwindling demand. Even worse, investment analysts have already spotted the emergence of EVs. The cat is out of the bag. The entire world is not as dumb as OPEC thinks.
http://foresightinvestor.com/articles/554942-startfragment-the-rise-of-ev-amp-hybrid-cars-endfragment-nbsp-nbsp-br
As much as I love EVs, drive a hybrid and can’t wait for my own EV, I’m inclined to agree a little with OPEC. Consumers face tremendous obstacles in buying EVs.
The first is cost. EVs won’t even be considered by the mainstream till costs drop to about the same as gas vehicles.
The second is standardisation and fuelling networks. It’s great that Tesla built its own. What about everybody else?
Lastly, there’s the challenge of urbanisation. In most of the world, residents live in buildings, they park on the street, often in unassigned spots. Charging will be challenging for them. Even Tesla hasn’t begun to tackle this problem in earnest.
These challenges will take time to solve. Sure OPEC is biased. But they aren’t entirely off the mark. It’ll take at least 20 years for EVs to gain substantial market share.
I’m just surprised that OPEC thinks CNG and diesel will have such large market share. Or that hybrids won’t have more share than what they show. By 2040, I’d expect hybridisation to be the norm, not the exception.
“In most of the world, residents live in buildings, they park on the street, often in unassigned spots.”
That is a problem.
As to costs, they will be competitive with gas burners in a year or two or three, right Bob?
Your concern on EV costs times nicely with two EVs arriving with 200 mile range and mid 30k costs. Bolt and model 3. Storage costs are dropping faster than anticipated.
No one predicted the storage prices of the Tesla PowerWall before 2020.
$30k EVs will do nothing for the next billion car sales, the vast majority of which will be $4-6k cars sold in the developing world like the Tata Nano.
The developed world is not really the problem. Car sales are dropping in the West anyway. Millennials aren’t as interested in driving. Cities are densifying and investing more in logic transit. It’s the developing world that it’s is the real challenge.
Sorry. US still wins on oil consumption by a wide margin.
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=91&t=10
That average ICE vehicle price is in the high 20 thousands. EVs are in the same category, but with only 100 mile range. Next, EVs got over 200 mile range. Next, EVs got 200 mile range and just a bit higher price than the average ICE car. Its not too hard to see where this is going.
On the other hand, all private vehicle transport is expensive. Per capita income in China and India is lower than US. China is so polluted that it has some very creative ways of limiting driving. For example, in some areas, a license plate can cost 13,000 dollars.
http://www.npr.org/2015/12/14/459637364/what-s-driving-the-electric-car-trend-in-china
In others, there is a license plate lottery. To increase sales, your EV odds of getting a license plate are increased.
http://wardsauto.com/industry/china-s-adoption-electric-vehicles-charges-ahead
India is a bit different. Also tremendous pollution. But there, poverty limits access to private transportation more than China.
Meanwhile, good ol US of A is still the number one consumer of oil. Which means cars. And that means private transportation. There is some switch to other transportation and that helps. It also helps to reduce or limit FF private transport. But the biggest problem is still right in the US and will still be for some time to come.
You are mistaking oil consumption for high petrol demand. While the US has a large auto market, it also has a large trucking industry, a massive aviation sector and cold areas which need heating. Oil is used for a lot more than private cars in a highly developed economy.
On the other hand, the Chinese now produce twice as many cars as the US. And India is determined to be a global leader of low cost vehicles. If you think the few hundred million cars in the US are a problem, what do you think will happen when India makes cars affordable for half the planet? And its not just cars, India and China will both have larger economies than the US in the next 50 years. Their people will fly more, want more delivered goods, etc.
All those fixated on American oil consumption are missing the forest for the trees. The trends in the rest of the world are worrisome. $30k EVs will solve the US. But what about the rest of the world that still aspires to their first car?
What’s needed in addition to EVs is a rethink on urban design and personal transport. We just can’t build more zombified American style cities designed to house and support millions of vehicles with the attendant roads, parking lots, etc. taking up space. EVs don’t solve the problem of traffic congestion that kills and ruins cities.
Yes, cost of batteries needs to keep coming down. But when I was in China in July 2014 I saw a lot of EVs they just were not cars. And yes lots were plugged into electric cord on the side of the street. Also many rickshaws are electric, when I was there 10 years ago all the assisted pedal rickshaws were gas, this time I was amazed. It felt like most of the ones that pulled up to me were electric assisted.
You said don’t be USA “fixated” when looking at the problem. I say don’t be USA “fixated” when looking at the solution. You should not assume that India and China will follow the same path the USA did with cars, anymore than the developing world is following the same path for phones. They skipped past landlines and when to cell phones first.
Sorry. Wrong again.
http://beodom.com/assets/images/education/peakoil/oil-consumption-by-sector-usa-2004.jpg
1,The vast majority of oil is used for transportation.
2. The vast majority of transportation oil use is for private transport.
3. Very little oil is used for heating.
US uses more oil than anyone and it is private transportation.
Cars are expensive. Doesn’t matter what country you live in. That is one reason they are not adopted heavily in poorer countries. The amount cars are adopted in China and India depends on how soon, and how many, get wealthy. When they do, it will be important to have an alternative to ICE cars for them to spend their money on.
Tata introduced a very low cost vehicle in India. It failed. Somehow with the slogan “worlds cheapest car” it didn’t succeed. Zero stars for safety might not have helped either.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/03/tata-nano-car-cheap-poor-safety-rating
I sincerely hope they keep ignoring the EV gains. They have had their run… time to let others have a chance. They will be too busy in their crazy Sunni vs Shia factional religious wars against Iran to worry about it much anyways. Very sad future. I choose to keep driving my solar powered Nissan LEAFs regardless of OPECs plans and attempts to take a giant cut of America’s profits.
In the wise words of Homer Simpson: “Internet? Is that thing still around?”
If you drive am ev for a few months and you power by the extra solar energy from your home , it’s quite a marvelous experience . The electric cars are not only quick and quite , they seem to change your driving habits making you a better driver.
And when you switch back to an ice car ” internal combustion engine” , the change is noticeable , slower ,no user,vibrate ,and the gas pumps seem to take forever to refuel.
The public will predict the future , and my bet would be on ev’s !! Drive one for a few days then voice your opinion .
Would love to…no affordable 7 seater in sight. The Sharan will have to get me over the next 5-10 years.
Would buy a 20k€ Model X though anytime.
Is there any truth to a rumor I read ‘online’: India is presently working to ban consumer sales of all internal combustion vehicles by 2035??
Flash. OPEC announces its giving up. This oil is too foul and dirty and expensive to get out of the ground. Everyone loathes us for destroying the planet and we are sick of it. EVs are taking over and we can’t get anyone to buy gas even though we dropped the price so low we had to take a loan to pay our national debt. The heck with it. We are leaving it in the ground where it belongs. Anybody want solar? We have lots of it. Anyone? Solar?
People forgot that the demand for owning a vehicle will be dropping in developed countries. The millennials living in those codos are quite happy to use public transport and uber. But they will pick the most eco option, an electric self driving uber taxi.
Cut the Uber. Self driving fleets will be operated by car companies. Mercedes already said so.
If the electric self driving car becomes a reality, and they figure out how to do the charging without a person, then the price of these “taxis” should go down a lot, maybe half? That would likely increase their numbers, and availability, which if coupled with a good mobile app will become also faster and more convenient, because the car too is a computer, so the communications can be faster and more precise. Then if you are willing to ride with others, then cars can be waiting by the train station, and the computers can put you together for the last mile or two, and you don’t even have to pay for parking, or find a spot. Then it becomes cheaper for sure, and maybe faster since it can drop you off by the door.
You can totally ignore this article, their first premise is “without further battery development”. That condition ain’t going to happen. In fact, it is too late already. OPEC is evil in its selfishness and arabs are not our friends.
Is far as i can see the oil industry has two catch twenty two situation’s if the price of petrol goes up some people will buy a electric car .and if the price of oil remains low it will not be profitable to find new oil reserves .because oil also makes plastics the hole of the uk has a five pence plastic bag tax that has Seen a 80% reduction in plastic bag used .and also the recycle of household waste
PLEASE do this for me:
Keep a snapshot of this graph, and then, at the beginning of next year and each year thereafter, compare it to the ACTUAL market penetration of alternate fuel vehicles.
Would be a great start to start the New Year, a way to get people talking and could become a wonderful tradition.
Thank you.
“… EVs will not appeal to mainstream shoppers due to “consumer resistance,” the report says.
And they will do everything in their power to foster such “consumer resistance”.
Let us call out their FUD wherever we see it.
“You war against the sunset-glow. The judgement follows fast, my Lord”
(Rudyard Kipling, Heriot’s Ford)
The EV and alternative energy markets are growing rapidly and will accelerate even more in the next few years. The handwriting is on the wall. Denial is NOT a river in Egypt.
The switch away from conventional ICEVs to alternatives is inevitable as fuel becomes ever scarcer and more expensive. The when is arguable and so far the switch is very slow. The number of fueled cars is still increasing quite rapidly.
Not too long ago there was an interesting article on this blog that showed in several cases where technological obsolescence wiped out some very large companies that could not see the future. After a critical mass has been reached by early adopters a new supplanting technology grows exponentially. Apparently OPEC didn’t read the article.