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Oil Giant Total Sees Electric Cars Seriously Cutting Into Oil Demand Soon

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At the Bloomberg New Energy Finance conference in New York on April 25, Joel Couse, chief economist for Total, predicted that sales of electric cars will surge from about 1% globally in today's new car market to up to 30% of the market by 2030. If that happens, he says, demand for petroleum based fuels ”will flatten out, maybe even decline." Total is one of the world's largest oil producers. His forecast surprised many people at the conference.

The forecast by Couse is the highest yet by any major oil company. It even exceeds the expectations of Colin McKerracher, the head of advanced transport analysis at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. ”That's big," he said. ”That's by far the most aggressive we've seen by any of the majors." Michael Liebreich, who founded Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said, ”By 2020 there will be over 120 different models of EV across the spectrum. These are great cars. They will make the internal combustion equivalent look old fashioned."
Battery prices, which account for almost one half the cost of electric cars today, are falling by as much as 20% a year. That price drop is what is expected to propel electric cars into being a major part of new vehicle sales in years to come. Volkswagen expects 25% of its sales to be electric by 2025. Toyota plans to stop selling cars powered by fossil fuels completely by 2050.

Another factor holding back the sale of electric cars today is the lack of recharging infrastructure, but progress is being made there as well. Tesla announced this week that it is doubling the size of its Supercharger network by the end of 2017. Electric car chargers are now more common along principal transportation routes in the US. Chargers that can provide up to 350 kW of power are on the drawing boards and expected to become available in the next few years, reducing charging times dramatically.
The prediction may be startling, but it could turn out to be too cautious. The electric car revolution is building momentum and could significantly disrupt the new car market faster than anyone, even Joel Couse, expects.
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/04/26/oil-giant-total-sees-electric-cars-cutting-oil-demand-soon/
Electric-car-sales-chart-BNEF.png


Very interesting stuff.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Then the United States better start upgrading the power grid, which is drastically behind schedule.
 
Without the necessary power grid this will be a disaster worldwide. Not near what using oil is, mind you, but it won't end well.
 

Akala

Member
Realistically EV growth will outpace progress in renewable energy infrastructure/capacity. Also assuming technological increases (mechanical recharging, etc.) lag behind...what will be powering the grid for these? The power has to come from somewhere.

I'd guess natural gas, in which case major oil companies are fine for a while?
 

Shaanyboi

Banned
The solution then is to burn down every factory producing electric cars. Because they sure can't let this transition happen!
 
Realistically EV growth will outpace progress in renewable energy infrastructure/capacity. Also assuming technological increases (mechanical recharging, etc.) lag behind...what will be powering the grid for these? The power has to come from somewhere.

I'd guess natural gas, in which case major oil companies are fine for a while?
Your Tesla solar panels, which will load your Tesla battery in the garage during the day, so you can charge your Tesla car at night.
 

Akala

Member
Your Tesla solar panels, which will load your Tesla battery in the garage during the day, so you can charge your Tesla car at night.

Know (think? Lol) you're kidding but I have heard this reasoning before.

This assumes a pretty large jump in solar panel tech yes? I can see people getting the panels that look like shingles on the high end, but don't think most people will be able to afford much less than a basic array and more will balk if there isn't a non-uggo solution.

Shared housing and regional weather issues can challenge this as well.
 

guek

Banned
Know (think? Lol) you're kidding but I have heard this reasoning before.

This assumes a pretty large jump in solar panel tech yes? I can see people getting the panels that look like shingles on the high end, but don't think most people will be able to afford much less than a basic array and more will balk if there isn't a non-uggo solution.

Shared housing and regional weather issues can challenge this as well.

Solar panel tech has made enormous strides in the past decade. We've still some time to go before mass production on efficient panels becomes common place but China is certainly working on it.

The fact of the matter is, Bill Nye is right when he says the world could simultaneously go completely green and grow the world economy right now if we just decided to do it.
 
Know (think? Lol) you're kidding but I have heard this reasoning before.

This assumes a pretty large jump in solar panel tech yes? I can see people getting the panels that look like shingles on the high end, but don't think most people will be able to afford much less than a basic array and more will balk if there isn't a non-uggo solution.

Shared housing and regional weather issues can challenge this as well.
Mostly kidding, but I think we will see more houses powering themselves through solar where possible. Pricing is becoming cheaper and panels more efficient. But it can't be used everywhere.

Large problem seems to be that solar and other renewables are not really constant in powering the grid, so you either need to save the energy somewhere to use later on and get rid of it when too much is produced (I think Germany has this problem sometimes, where they need to give energy for free to neighboring countries at times).

Of course we could also use nuclear for a while, but that is scary.
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
A potential drop in demand for petroleum-based fuels doesn't mean a commensurate drop in demand for oil itself. Gasoline makes up roughly 60% of the transportation fuel used in the US and 47% of petroleum consumption.

Sweet prices should drop then for gas :D

Or OPEC slashes production to maintain the price of oil (again).

But let's say that oil and gas prices go down due to electric cars making up a larger percentage of transportation automobiles. That just makes the electric car more expensive in comparison.

A real American wouldn't rely on big government socialism for grid handouts and would instead get solar cells and generate their own power.

Most "real Americans" don't have $20k laying around to spend on batteries and panels. I imagine it isn't hard to get a loan for this though, particularly if you live somewhere you can sell your excess power to the local utility.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Without the necessary power grid this will be a disaster worldwide. Not near what using oil is, mind you, but it won't end well.

I think this will be worse. Killing power grids leaves people without heating/cooling/water in some places.
 

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
This is telecom vs mobile phones, but vastly bigger and whether humanity survives at stake. Some big oil firms will survive, some will fold. Some will try to destroy the industry as they go down. See AT&T, Bell, Sprint, MCI, and so on. Those that make wise decisions own the future. See: Apple, Samsung, Verizon.
 
Now if we can just get electric cars down to affordable prices we'll be in business.
Several options in the sub-30k range now. I'm looking into a Hyundai Ioniq personally. After federal & state tax incentives/rebates it's about 20k flat and Hyundai even reimburses your charging costs for 50,000 miles. And they'll only become more affordable from here.
 
Yup. Remember how digital cameras cornered the photography market much faster than anyone predicted?

It happened in movies too. We went from virtually no movies being shot digitally to almost every movie being shot digitally in a span of about 5 years from 2009-2014.

Edit- sorry for double post
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
I think it'll be a lot higher a lot sooner. By 2025 I can see all flagship cars will be EVs.

I agree. I can only speak anecdotally, but there is a lot of interesting stuff happening in the EV market and I think we're going to see a lot more people jump in. The higher capacity batteries that are coming will help ease the concerns of a great number of people for one thing.

Now if we can just get electric cars down to affordable prices we'll be in business.

You can get a used 2 or 3-year old Leaf with less than 20k miles on it for under $10,000. They can't do long range, but they are great commuter vehicles.
 
I agree. I can only speak anecdotally, but there is a lot of interesting stuff happening in the EV market and I think we're going to see a lot more people jump in. The higher capacity batteries that are coming will help ease the concerns of a great number of people for one thing.

Yeah, 200+ mile EV's will be the norm for new EV models by this time next year, and they'll be nearly the same cost as 100-120 mile range EV's this year. Hyundai, chevrolet, volkswagen, tesla, Nissan and probably a few others will all have 200+ mile EVs next year.
 
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