7 ms·

Big oil will die when it becomes cheaper to hail an electric self-driving car

95 points by nlolks 9y ago

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
That's a hell of a bubble the author is in. Good thing he's not talking politics. ICEs aren't going anywhere for a very long time. Their market share will certainly be reduced for ground transportation but electric power isn't making nearly as much progress in marine or aviation applications. Liquid field are simply too convenient, especially in remote areas. I know city folk sometimes like to forget that everyone else exists but gas/diesel off highway vehicles aren't getting replaced very soon. The service life of a big piece of equipment (e.g. a front end loader) is measured in decades. Even if a silver bullet comes along it will take a long time for everything else to age out. Secondly, standby generators are everywhere. Those aren't being replaced with batteries anytime soon for obvious reasons. Oil is refined for use in plastics, lubricants and a laundry list of other things that are indefensible to modern civilization. Sure, transportation is a big slice of the market for oil and it's going to get smaller but it's not the only slice. Finally, while the first world may adopt electric power soon, other nations will be slower. If the Keystone pipeline isn't carrying crude that will be refined and sold in the US it will be carrying crude that will be refined and sold elsewhere. This is wishful thinking, nothing more. I don't have stock in an oil company or anything, the author's claims are just a little too ridiculous for me to ignore.
- flunhat 9y ago
  > Their market share will certainly be reduced for ground transportation And that alone will be enough. You're right that gas/diesel will never be completely replaced, but it seems that it doesn't need to be in order to suffer a serious decline in usage that radically transforms the energy landscape. Looking at this graphic [1], ground transportation is the biggest single use case of oil in the United States. 67% of oil consumption in the U.S. goes to the transportation sector, and ~80% of the transportation industry's oil use is for ground travel. A serious decline in that could really hurt the industry and cause the kind of disruption the author was talking about. (Granted, the graphic's from 2004 but I don't have a reason to believe the proportions have fundamentally changed). [1] http://afstrinity.com/images/data/oil-transportation.jpg http://afstrinity.com/images/data/oil-transportation.jpg
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    Unless something comes along that halves domestic ground travel demand overnight it's not going to hurt the industry too bad. They'll just sell crude to China or whoever. Furthermore, if gas/diesel usage falls then other oil products become cheaper so while lost demand from transportation would not be close to fully compensated for elsewhere it will still be partially compensated for. It's not the change that hurts, it's how fast the change happens. Think about the kinds of things that have hurt the industry in the past. They've all been very quick.
    - woodandsteel 9y ago
      >They'll just sell crude to China or whoever. So China will stick with gasoline even though it will be more expensive, has to be imported, and the country has terrible air pollution problems?
  - ac29 9y ago
    This link says transportation uses about 3/4 of petroleum usage in the US [0] (2015), so that graphic isnt too far off. About 50% of the total is just in motor vehicle gasoline. [0]https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use
- mywittyname 9y ago
  > That's a hell of a bubble the author is in. Agreed. The fact that countries need to establish laws to prohibit ICE vehicles suggests that "the market" isn't going to kill ICEs for economical reasons.
peapicker 9y ago
I love my combustion engine car and don't plan to go electric next time... but this article made me think. And while perhaps a little too optimistic on timeline, I have to concede that his premise regarding moving parts has merit.
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  If it's any comfort, I don't think combustion engines will go anywhere. They will likely be relegated to a romantic niche, however. It happened with vinyl and film already, most famously. They were announced to have met their end and were doomed to be but a mark in history books, yet they've found their place. A fine-tuned masterpiece of mid-20th century automotive engineering is a thing of beauty, but it's not sustainable on a vast scale anymore -- and that's what we need for transportation now. We need transport on a vast scale -- a worldwide, ubiquitous, affordable scale. Everyone needs access without harming the planet that we so happily live upon. If it combustion engine vehicles become about beauty, they will last in some form. I hope they do.
  - TheCondor 9y ago
    I've been pondering this. I think gasoline could become hard to get very rapidly. There are already fewer gas stations along the interstates as car ranges have increased. As electrification takes hold, less demand drives the price of gas lower. At what point is it too cheap to stock at a convenience store? Right now those stores are built around it, gas brings in visitors. If less people want gas, their whole model has to change. No c-stores around sort of means not many places to get gas. will battery prices ever go up?
    - 52-6F-62 9y ago
      That's an interesting path to go down. It's pretty hard to predict for certain. People thought that vinyl manufacturing would never exist again, but new "boutique" pressing plants have emerged over time with people dedicated and passionate about the design of the machines and the quality control process. I imagine you could see something similar with gas, though of course the scale is very different. My father was a pipe fitter in an oil refinery for ~30 years, and he started doing it because he loved the craft. Over the years the large companies' treatment of their employees made him a bit jaded, but if it's a smaller operation I imagine you could see passions emerge again. In spite of the obvious benefits of automated vehicles, especially for long trips, I can see some people still enjoying the feeling of driving on the open road. And even if automated vehicles are the prominent mode for long trips, there will still exist a need for rest stops, truck stops, etc. They just might be a little different. There could probably be boutique gas/fuel stores. Maybe someplace that offered charging stations, new fully-charged batteries, and various brands of artisan gasoline. And of course, they'd have a fridge full of Coca Cola and a shelf of chips and Oh Henry bars. Dammit, I'm seeing the makings of a fun fictional world here...
FussyZeus 9y ago
While the author makes a lot of interesting points that even I hadn't considered before as an enthusiastic reader of EV news, there are a few glaring holes I need to point out: - Pretty much every point the author makes about the rapid takeover of EVs, from being cheaper to hail one instead of owning a gasoline powered car, to the ones relating to owning cars at all, could (and should) be prefixed by "In a city..." because speaking as someone who lives far from an urban sprawl, a lot of this stuff just would not work. Sure EV's work ok out here, though the self driving tech might need more help than most often, but who is buying all of these self driving EV cabs and operating them, and why? The volume just isn't here, you'd get tons of passengers clamoring for a ride between 7am and 9am, then again at 3pm to 5pm, and then it would be near dead the rest of the time. - There are no EV technologies (to my knowledge) ready to replace anything beyond a city runabout vehicle. The act of, for example, plowing snow would be insanely taxing on an EV truck (running an electric motor under strain is the best way to wear down the battery), and sure, the mechanical element is definitely true but you'd need some sort of fast-charge system to make it viable, otherwise your trucks are spending hours charging for every hour plowing. And then that's a fairly easy one, electric combines, construction equipment, cranes, tow trucks, I haven't heard of any of these and I look for this sort of thing. - Societal inertia is going to be a big factor here, around here we have people driving vehicles from the 70's, not as collector's items or anything like that but as their daily driver. Come on out here and propose to our average Joe the idea of buying a Tesla Model 3 for $37,000, a guy who barely makes $30,000 a year, who buys and drives the cheapest thing on the lot until the wheels fall off and goes and gets something else. I could go on but it's bed time. Maybe ICE vehicles will be dearth from cities within 10 years, maybe. But even then I kind of doubt it.
- pmoriarty 9y ago
  Most of the US population (and that of most other countries around the world) is concentrated in cities. So even if EV's were limited to just city driving, that would suit most people for most of the driving they do. Electric trains exist, and they haul around way more mass than a simple truck. As for battery charging times, why couldn't users just swap out empty batteries for fully-charged ones, and charge the empty ones while they're offline?
- 9y ago
pkaye 9y ago
However there are other uses for oil other than gasoline like jet fuel, asphalt for roads, making plastics.
- cpete 9y ago
  Your comment reminded me of the idea that "...crude oil is much too valuable to be burned as a fuel." http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7121.html http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7121.html
- zasz 9y ago
  Sure, but something like 40% of all oil in America is used for transportation, and 55% of that is gasoline for cars. Source: http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/fuels.aspx http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/fuels.aspx https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/?page=us_energy_transportation https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/?page=us_energy_transpor... I can't find a good source for what percentage of global oil consumption is burned up in cars, but supposing that was ~20% as well--that would be really something, to take away ~20% of Big Oil's revenues.
diafygi 9y ago
There's a fantastic report from UK that studies what would happen to oil companies if demand decreases at the rate needed to hit 2 and 3 degrees warming. In general, it see oil prices falling and sovereign oil selling the most since they can undercut competition for a diminishing pie (basically a fire sale). The private oil companies get super screwed, with something like 80%+ stranded assets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_bubble
spraak 9y ago
> The costs of electric self-driving cars will be so low, it will be cheaper to hail a ride than to drive the car you already own. Actually it's nearly to that point for me already. I moved to LA from Hawai'i. In most places in Hawai'i having a car is essential if you want to go anywhere (not so much in Honolulu) - on my island the bus only ran every 2 hours until 4pm on the weekends, and some of the stops were over 5 miles apart. But now that I live in LA, so any of my needs to go out can be met with Sprouts Amazon Prime Now, Uber and when I really need something coordinated I'll rent a Turo car. And all this costs me less than a monthly car payment would.
- chx 9y ago
  Don't forget the part where Uber is selling the service below cost...
  - klipt 9y ago
    Subsidized Uber rides are proof that venture capitalists love us and want us to be happy.
    - s0rce 9y ago
      And Amazon shipping.
    - chx 9y ago
      Subsidized Uber rides are proof that venture capitalists ... are interested in the spread of late stage capitalism and destroying the progress in worker welfare that took a hundred plus years to make.
- matty22 9y ago
  Same for me. I happen to live in a place with decent enough bus routes. A monthly bus pass is $90. Insurance for the single car my family owns is...$90. So already a bus pass is on point with owning a car and that's just for insurance. Add to the cost of operating a vehicle: gasoline, oil changes, repairs, annual inspections/registration, etc. Busing for my commute and then using Uber/Lyft/Zipcar for abnormal trips is cheaper than owning and operating a personal vehicle, today. Forget about 2025.
amluto 9y ago
There's a flaw in the argument that individual vehicles will go away: families with kids. Before I had a baby, ride sharing was fantastic. Now it's basically useless. To transport my baby, I need a car seat of the appropriate size. It's really handy if I can leave a stash of diapers and wipes in the car. A portable high chair is nice, too. Sure, ride sharing is more convenient, but the car seat issue is a show stopper, at least until the ride sharing services catch up or autonomous car safety improves significantly and legislation catches up. All that being said, the car seat and diaper cache in question live in an EV, and I'm quite happy that I am basically done with the gas station phase of my life.
- PNWChris 9y ago
  This is a really big point I've never considered! I don't have kids, so I'm definitely coming from a place of ignorance. On planes and trains I never see car seats used, which I assume is because crashes are so unlikely on those modes of transit. If self driving cars are as safe as, or safer than, a trip on a train, would it still be a concern?
  - spiralpolitik 9y ago
    Car seats are now encouraged for planes for < 18 months. The worry isn't crashes per say but jerks and sudden stops on take off and landing, and turbulence. https://www.faa.gov/passengers/fly_children/ https://www.faa.gov/passengers/fly_children/ It's a PITA to use due to the huge variety of seat dimensions and car seat sizes and no standardized latching system for plane seats.
  - ohkaiby 9y ago
    ^ Parent w/ a <1 yr old. Car seats aren't used on planes because a car seat would take up a seat, which costs money. Kids under 2 yrs are free if they sit on your lap at most/all US airlines, so parents would just swap lap-sitting for their kid(s). Not sure about trains. I assume that if/when cars are as safe as a plane/train, adults wouldn't even need seat belts but you'd still need a carseat for an infant/toddler because it also stabilizes the child's position. Kids <6mo have no neck control. Kids <10mo can't reliably sit up for long durations. An autodriving car might be safe, but it'd probably still need to make emergency stops / turns. That'd be real bad if there were no carseats.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
j7ake 9y ago
This essay carries little weight if he hasn't put his own money on the Line by betting against oil companies.
j7ake 9y ago
This essay carries little weight if he hasn't put his own money on the Line by betting against oil companies.
aresant 9y ago
What could validate this article's hypothesis is if Tesla manages to roll out a Class 8 Truck that meets the industry's needs. Musk tweeted earlier this year "Tesla Semi truck unveil set for September. Team has done an amazing job. Seriously next level." I am involved in a logistics startup that leverages Class 8 trucks and the specs are brutal. Our trucks need a 500+ mile range and have to haul 40,000 - 50,000 pounds, and do it 5 - 6 days a week reliably. It's hard to conceive how an electric drive train & battery array could manage to deliver on those basic specs. But since 2000 heavy trucks have accounted for 40% of the TOTAL growth in oil demand, and similar gains are projected over the next few decades.(2) And capital on the fleet side is very organized and effecient. EG if lifetime operating costs of electric are significantly lower w/a longer useful equipment lifetime adoption will be rapid. (1) https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/852580027178696704 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/852580027178696704 (2) http://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2017/july/iea-study-unveils-key-role-for-trucks-in-global-oil-demand-growth.html http://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2017/july/iea-study-unveils...
- wfunction 9y ago
  > But since 2000 heavy trucks have accounted for 40% of the TOTAL growth in oil demand I kept trying to parse this (and then got shocked and was like "no, that can't be true...") before going on and realizing I was reading a garden path sentence.
  - sitkack 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence
    - marak830 9y ago
      Thank you I hadn't read the description of that before.
  - ldp01 9y ago
    After looking up the definition of garden path sentence... I'm not sure this fits the bill. It doesn't look like a misleading statement to me. Unless you mean it's missing a comma after '2000'?
8rian 9y ago
Gasoline is 100 times more energy dense than a battery. The Tesla roadster adds 800 lbs to the lotus elise upon which it is built. Batteries have a long way to go.
- DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
  But the beauty of adopting electric cars now is that when a better battery technology is developed it can be replaced in cars on an individual basis, whereas a reason we don't drive hydrogen cars today is because fuelling stations would need to stock that in addition to traditional fuels. Supposing nanowire batteries come out for cars: they can still use the same EV chargers.
- adrianN 9y ago
  And yet combustion vehicles don't have 2000 miles range. Energy density is very important, but you can make up for it with better efficiency.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    Only because they don't need it. Most people are comfortable with a ~300 mile range, knowing they can refill in 5 minutes. So most cars are built with 10-to-15 gallon tanks. Build a car with a 30 gallon tank and you could easily be in the neighborhood of 1000 miles range.
- m_mueller 9y ago
  AFAIK the factor is more like 50x now (Tesla's panasonic packs vs. gasoline) [1]. The thing is, in order to have a fair comparison in energy density, you should compare with the weight of the whole drivetrain, which lowers the advantage of gasoline quite a bit (due to a heavy motor and transmission) [2]. You also have to consider the significantly lower energy conversion efficiency of ICEs (3-4x). All in all I'd expect the difference is more like 2x, otherwise it would be impossible to have EV cars with a more than two thirds of the range than ICE cars of similar size, weight and power (Tesla S vs. BMW M5). Edit: IMO the main disadvantage of EVs today is not the energy density, with that they're almost on par with ICE. Instead it is the rate at which energy can be refueled. Driving a Tesla for long distances is still a hassle. That's why I see EVs mainly as daily commuters in the near future, while for weekend trips people may just rent an ICU car. [1] http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-770920.html http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-7709... [2] http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1104121_electric-car-energy-density-to-approach-gasoline-by-2045-report http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1104121_electric-car-ene...
rdtsc 9y ago
> internal combustion engine has too many moving parts. It does. But then the simple EVs aren't a that much cheaper than those complicated ICE cars. Where is the $9k efficiency basic model that someone in a lower income bracket could afford? Mention the government incentives and credits and talk about the cheap recharge cost compared to a tank of gas, less maintenance costs, and all of the sudden a lot of people will start listening. Most EV cars start at $20k and up from what I remember. That's more than the MSRP of a new Honda Civic. Few American consumers will choose a more expensive model, with less range, and long recharge cycle. There'd have to be some serious tax incentives/penalties or a huge jump in gas prices for people to start seriously considering EVs as their next car. I get the point of electric taxis about maintenance, but there are only so many taxis around. Some are even regulated based on a medallion system. So I am afraid just taxis might not be enough to revolutionize the car industry.
- m_mueller 9y ago
  EV price will mainly depend on how well Li-Ion batteries scale up in a mass market. I'd imagine at some point more and more of the price will go towards the part that cannot be made cheaper (and will actually increase in price with higher demand): Lithium. On the other hand, having efficient refurb/recycle processes for older batteries may solve that, assuming that there's enough Lithium to serve the global market once over in the first place. If not I guess it's either time for a new battery technology or time to mine asteroids or the moon.
chx 9y ago
There are some, how to call, secondary effects which can avalanche real quick. For example, if gas stations begin to close (or just give up regular gasoline still selling diesel to trucks) that can become a self strengthening death spiral incredibly fast.
akamaka 9y ago
Electric vehicles have not yet turned out to be more reliable or cheaper to repair. Tesla vehicles are lower than average on both of those measures. I used to be very optimistic because of how simple electric cars are in theory, but in practice, a century of refinement of internal combustion engines has not yet been beaten.
- ensignavenger 9y ago
  The two Tesla models that are available right now are not 'average' cost vehicles, though. How do the fair against similarly positioned vehicles? I would expect Teslas to be a bit more expensive to maintain at this point, as parts availability and third party after market parts manufacturers are about non-existent for them. As electric vehicles get more popular and mainstream, this problems (as far as EVs in general) will likely be resolved.
- sitkack 9y ago
  Cite? I know quite a few people that have Nissan Leafs and have had literally zero maintenance.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
gozur88 9y ago
He's wildly optimistic on the timeline to the point of delusion, but it's probably true we'll transition to automated electric cars within a few decades.
MR4D 9y ago
It would be interesting to see if lithium mining and production could be scaled up fast enough to produce 15+ million cars per year (US only). Something tells me that this could be an ecological disaster even greater than coal. The article may be correct on the rationale, but the timing seems fast given everyone's concern about the planet. Also consider that oil comes from a small hole in the ground, and already has refineries in place to turn it into gasoline, while last year the whole world only produced about 650,000 tons of lithium. Each Tesla uses about 65Kg of it.
- sitkack 9y ago
  One car is going to be able to service 4-10 people, old cars will still exist. Think of the transition from incandescent to fluorescent to LED, no one expected that LED would take over so soon, that the efficiencies and bulb life would surpass CFL as quickly. How many LED bulb assembly lines do we need? Probably 1. For the whole world.
- mywittyname 9y ago
  I think recycling will be a significant source of these metals by the time the world is producing 30+M EVs a year.
woodandsteel 9y ago
It's important to understand that oil companies all over the world will be going bankrupt if consumption falls 30%. To start, they all have huge investments that they borrowed money for on the calculation of making a certain level of revenue for 40 or so years. A big drop in demand will mean less sales, but also that prices per barrel, which are already low, will go down even further. The result would be maybe half the total revenue, so they won't be able to pay off their loans and will have to declare bankruptcy.

95 points by nlolks 9y ago

That's a hell of a bubble the author is in. Good thing he's not talking politics. ICEs aren't going anywhere for a very long time. Their market share will certainly be reduced for ground transportation but electric power isn't making nearly as much progress in marine or aviation applications. Liquid field are simply too convenient, especially in remote areas. I know city folk sometimes like to forget that everyone else exists but gas/diesel off highway vehicles aren't getting replaced very soon. The service life of a big piece of equipment (e.g. a front end loader) is measured in decades. Even if a silver bullet comes along it will take a long time for everything else to age out. Secondly, standby generators are everywhere. Those aren't being replaced with batteries anytime soon for obvious reasons. Oil is refined for use in plastics, lubricants and a laundry list of other things that are indefensible to modern civilization. Sure, transportation is a big slice of the market for oil and it's going to get smaller but it's not the only slice. Finally, while the first world may adopt electric power soon, other nations will be slower. If the Keystone pipeline isn't carrying crude that will be refined and sold in the US it will be carrying crude that will be refined and sold elsewhere. This is wishful thinking, nothing more. I don't have stock in an oil company or anything, the author's claims are just a little too ridiculous for me to ignore.

flunhat 9y ago
> Their market share will certainly be reduced for ground transportation And that alone will be enough. You're right that gas/diesel will never be completely replaced, but it seems that it doesn't need to be in order to suffer a serious decline in usage that radically transforms the energy landscape. Looking at this graphic [1], ground transportation is the biggest single use case of oil in the United States. 67% of oil consumption in the U.S. goes to the transportation sector, and ~80% of the transportation industry's oil use is for ground travel. A serious decline in that could really hurt the industry and cause the kind of disruption the author was talking about. (Granted, the graphic's from 2004 but I don't have a reason to believe the proportions have fundamentally changed). [1] http://afstrinity.com/images/data/oil-transportation.jpg http://afstrinity.com/images/data/oil-transportation.jpg
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  Unless something comes along that halves domestic ground travel demand overnight it's not going to hurt the industry too bad. They'll just sell crude to China or whoever. Furthermore, if gas/diesel usage falls then other oil products become cheaper so while lost demand from transportation would not be close to fully compensated for elsewhere it will still be partially compensated for. It's not the change that hurts, it's how fast the change happens. Think about the kinds of things that have hurt the industry in the past. They've all been very quick.
  - woodandsteel 9y ago
    >They'll just sell crude to China or whoever. So China will stick with gasoline even though it will be more expensive, has to be imported, and the country has terrible air pollution problems?
- ac29 9y ago
  This link says transportation uses about 3/4 of petroleum usage in the US [0] (2015), so that graphic isnt too far off. About 50% of the total is just in motor vehicle gasoline. [0]https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use
mywittyname 9y ago
> That's a hell of a bubble the author is in. Agreed. The fact that countries need to establish laws to prohibit ICE vehicles suggests that "the market" isn't going to kill ICEs for economical reasons.

peapicker 9y ago

I love my combustion engine car and don't plan to go electric next time... but this article made me think. And while perhaps a little too optimistic on timeline, I have to concede that his premise regarding moving parts has merit.

52-6F-62 9y ago
If it's any comfort, I don't think combustion engines will go anywhere. They will likely be relegated to a romantic niche, however. It happened with vinyl and film already, most famously. They were announced to have met their end and were doomed to be but a mark in history books, yet they've found their place. A fine-tuned masterpiece of mid-20th century automotive engineering is a thing of beauty, but it's not sustainable on a vast scale anymore -- and that's what we need for transportation now. We need transport on a vast scale -- a worldwide, ubiquitous, affordable scale. Everyone needs access without harming the planet that we so happily live upon. If it combustion engine vehicles become about beauty, they will last in some form. I hope they do.
- TheCondor 9y ago
  I've been pondering this. I think gasoline could become hard to get very rapidly. There are already fewer gas stations along the interstates as car ranges have increased. As electrification takes hold, less demand drives the price of gas lower. At what point is it too cheap to stock at a convenience store? Right now those stores are built around it, gas brings in visitors. If less people want gas, their whole model has to change. No c-stores around sort of means not many places to get gas. will battery prices ever go up?
  - 52-6F-62 9y ago
    That's an interesting path to go down. It's pretty hard to predict for certain. People thought that vinyl manufacturing would never exist again, but new "boutique" pressing plants have emerged over time with people dedicated and passionate about the design of the machines and the quality control process. I imagine you could see something similar with gas, though of course the scale is very different. My father was a pipe fitter in an oil refinery for ~30 years, and he started doing it because he loved the craft. Over the years the large companies' treatment of their employees made him a bit jaded, but if it's a smaller operation I imagine you could see passions emerge again. In spite of the obvious benefits of automated vehicles, especially for long trips, I can see some people still enjoying the feeling of driving on the open road. And even if automated vehicles are the prominent mode for long trips, there will still exist a need for rest stops, truck stops, etc. They just might be a little different. There could probably be boutique gas/fuel stores. Maybe someplace that offered charging stations, new fully-charged batteries, and various brands of artisan gasoline. And of course, they'd have a fridge full of Coca Cola and a shelf of chips and Oh Henry bars. Dammit, I'm seeing the makings of a fun fictional world here...

FussyZeus 9y ago

While the author makes a lot of interesting points that even I hadn't considered before as an enthusiastic reader of EV news, there are a few glaring holes I need to point out: - Pretty much every point the author makes about the rapid takeover of EVs, from being cheaper to hail one instead of owning a gasoline powered car, to the ones relating to owning cars at all, could (and should) be prefixed by "In a city..." because speaking as someone who lives far from an urban sprawl, a lot of this stuff just would not work. Sure EV's work ok out here, though the self driving tech might need more help than most often, but who is buying all of these self driving EV cabs and operating them, and why? The volume just isn't here, you'd get tons of passengers clamoring for a ride between 7am and 9am, then again at 3pm to 5pm, and then it would be near dead the rest of the time. - There are no EV technologies (to my knowledge) ready to replace anything beyond a city runabout vehicle. The act of, for example, plowing snow would be insanely taxing on an EV truck (running an electric motor under strain is the best way to wear down the battery), and sure, the mechanical element is definitely true but you'd need some sort of fast-charge system to make it viable, otherwise your trucks are spending hours charging for every hour plowing. And then that's a fairly easy one, electric combines, construction equipment, cranes, tow trucks, I haven't heard of any of these and I look for this sort of thing. - Societal inertia is going to be a big factor here, around here we have people driving vehicles from the 70's, not as collector's items or anything like that but as their daily driver. Come on out here and propose to our average Joe the idea of buying a Tesla Model 3 for $37,000, a guy who barely makes $30,000 a year, who buys and drives the cheapest thing on the lot until the wheels fall off and goes and gets something else. I could go on but it's bed time. Maybe ICE vehicles will be dearth from cities within 10 years, maybe. But even then I kind of doubt it.

pmoriarty 9y ago
Most of the US population (and that of most other countries around the world) is concentrated in cities. So even if EV's were limited to just city driving, that would suit most people for most of the driving they do. Electric trains exist, and they haul around way more mass than a simple truck. As for battery charging times, why couldn't users just swap out empty batteries for fully-charged ones, and charge the empty ones while they're offline?
9y ago

pkaye 9y ago

However there are other uses for oil other than gasoline like jet fuel, asphalt for roads, making plastics.

cpete 9y ago
Your comment reminded me of the idea that "...crude oil is much too valuable to be burned as a fuel." http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7121.html http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7121.html
zasz 9y ago
Sure, but something like 40% of all oil in America is used for transportation, and 55% of that is gasoline for cars. Source: http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/fuels.aspx http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/fuels.aspx https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/?page=us_energy_transportation https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/?page=us_energy_transpor... I can't find a good source for what percentage of global oil consumption is burned up in cars, but supposing that was ~20% as well--that would be really something, to take away ~20% of Big Oil's revenues.

diafygi 9y ago

There's a fantastic report from UK that studies what would happen to oil companies if demand decreases at the rate needed to hit 2 and 3 degrees warming. In general, it see oil prices falling and sovereign oil selling the most since they can undercut competition for a diminishing pie (basically a fire sale). The private oil companies get super screwed, with something like 80%+ stranded assets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_bubble

spraak 9y ago

> The costs of electric self-driving cars will be so low, it will be cheaper to hail a ride than to drive the car you already own. Actually it's nearly to that point for me already. I moved to LA from Hawai'i. In most places in Hawai'i having a car is essential if you want to go anywhere (not so much in Honolulu) - on my island the bus only ran every 2 hours until 4pm on the weekends, and some of the stops were over 5 miles apart. But now that I live in LA, so any of my needs to go out can be met with Sprouts Amazon Prime Now, Uber and when I really need something coordinated I'll rent a Turo car. And all this costs me less than a monthly car payment would.

chx 9y ago
Don't forget the part where Uber is selling the service below cost...
- klipt 9y ago
  Subsidized Uber rides are proof that venture capitalists love us and want us to be happy.
  - s0rce 9y ago
    And Amazon shipping.
  - chx 9y ago
    Subsidized Uber rides are proof that venture capitalists ... are interested in the spread of late stage capitalism and destroying the progress in worker welfare that took a hundred plus years to make.
matty22 9y ago
Same for me. I happen to live in a place with decent enough bus routes. A monthly bus pass is $90. Insurance for the single car my family owns is...$90. So already a bus pass is on point with owning a car and that's just for insurance. Add to the cost of operating a vehicle: gasoline, oil changes, repairs, annual inspections/registration, etc. Busing for my commute and then using Uber/Lyft/Zipcar for abnormal trips is cheaper than owning and operating a personal vehicle, today. Forget about 2025.

amluto 9y ago

There's a flaw in the argument that individual vehicles will go away: families with kids. Before I had a baby, ride sharing was fantastic. Now it's basically useless. To transport my baby, I need a car seat of the appropriate size. It's really handy if I can leave a stash of diapers and wipes in the car. A portable high chair is nice, too. Sure, ride sharing is more convenient, but the car seat issue is a show stopper, at least until the ride sharing services catch up or autonomous car safety improves significantly and legislation catches up. All that being said, the car seat and diaper cache in question live in an EV, and I'm quite happy that I am basically done with the gas station phase of my life.

PNWChris 9y ago
This is a really big point I've never considered! I don't have kids, so I'm definitely coming from a place of ignorance. On planes and trains I never see car seats used, which I assume is because crashes are so unlikely on those modes of transit. If self driving cars are as safe as, or safer than, a trip on a train, would it still be a concern?
- spiralpolitik 9y ago
  Car seats are now encouraged for planes for < 18 months. The worry isn't crashes per say but jerks and sudden stops on take off and landing, and turbulence. https://www.faa.gov/passengers/fly_children/ https://www.faa.gov/passengers/fly_children/ It's a PITA to use due to the huge variety of seat dimensions and car seat sizes and no standardized latching system for plane seats.
- ohkaiby 9y ago
  ^ Parent w/ a <1 yr old. Car seats aren't used on planes because a car seat would take up a seat, which costs money. Kids under 2 yrs are free if they sit on your lap at most/all US airlines, so parents would just swap lap-sitting for their kid(s). Not sure about trains. I assume that if/when cars are as safe as a plane/train, adults wouldn't even need seat belts but you'd still need a carseat for an infant/toddler because it also stabilizes the child's position. Kids <6mo have no neck control. Kids <10mo can't reliably sit up for long durations. An autodriving car might be safe, but it'd probably still need to make emergency stops / turns. That'd be real bad if there were no carseats.

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j7ake 9y ago

This essay carries little weight if he hasn't put his own money on the Line by betting against oil companies.

j7ake 9y ago

This essay carries little weight if he hasn't put his own money on the Line by betting against oil companies.

aresant 9y ago

What could validate this article's hypothesis is if Tesla manages to roll out a Class 8 Truck that meets the industry's needs. Musk tweeted earlier this year "Tesla Semi truck unveil set for September. Team has done an amazing job. Seriously next level." I am involved in a logistics startup that leverages Class 8 trucks and the specs are brutal. Our trucks need a 500+ mile range and have to haul 40,000 - 50,000 pounds, and do it 5 - 6 days a week reliably. It's hard to conceive how an electric drive train & battery array could manage to deliver on those basic specs. But since 2000 heavy trucks have accounted for 40% of the TOTAL growth in oil demand, and similar gains are projected over the next few decades.(2) And capital on the fleet side is very organized and effecient. EG if lifetime operating costs of electric are significantly lower w/a longer useful equipment lifetime adoption will be rapid. (1) https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/852580027178696704 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/852580027178696704 (2) http://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2017/july/iea-study-unveils-key-role-for-trucks-in-global-oil-demand-growth.html http://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2017/july/iea-study-unveils...

wfunction 9y ago
> But since 2000 heavy trucks have accounted for 40% of the TOTAL growth in oil demand I kept trying to parse this (and then got shocked and was like "no, that can't be true...") before going on and realizing I was reading a garden path sentence.
- sitkack 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence
  - marak830 9y ago
    Thank you I hadn't read the description of that before.
- ldp01 9y ago
  After looking up the definition of garden path sentence... I'm not sure this fits the bill. It doesn't look like a misleading statement to me. Unless you mean it's missing a comma after '2000'?

8rian 9y ago

Gasoline is 100 times more energy dense than a battery. The Tesla roadster adds 800 lbs to the lotus elise upon which it is built. Batteries have a long way to go.

DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
But the beauty of adopting electric cars now is that when a better battery technology is developed it can be replaced in cars on an individual basis, whereas a reason we don't drive hydrogen cars today is because fuelling stations would need to stock that in addition to traditional fuels. Supposing nanowire batteries come out for cars: they can still use the same EV chargers.
adrianN 9y ago
And yet combustion vehicles don't have 2000 miles range. Energy density is very important, but you can make up for it with better efficiency.
- ams6110 9y ago
  Only because they don't need it. Most people are comfortable with a ~300 mile range, knowing they can refill in 5 minutes. So most cars are built with 10-to-15 gallon tanks. Build a car with a 30 gallon tank and you could easily be in the neighborhood of 1000 miles range.
m_mueller 9y ago
AFAIK the factor is more like 50x now (Tesla's panasonic packs vs. gasoline) [1]. The thing is, in order to have a fair comparison in energy density, you should compare with the weight of the whole drivetrain, which lowers the advantage of gasoline quite a bit (due to a heavy motor and transmission) [2]. You also have to consider the significantly lower energy conversion efficiency of ICEs (3-4x). All in all I'd expect the difference is more like 2x, otherwise it would be impossible to have EV cars with a more than two thirds of the range than ICE cars of similar size, weight and power (Tesla S vs. BMW M5). Edit: IMO the main disadvantage of EVs today is not the energy density, with that they're almost on par with ICE. Instead it is the rate at which energy can be refueled. Driving a Tesla for long distances is still a hassle. That's why I see EVs mainly as daily commuters in the near future, while for weekend trips people may just rent an ICU car. [1] http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-770920.html http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-7709... [2] http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1104121_electric-car-energy-density-to-approach-gasoline-by-2045-report http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1104121_electric-car-ene...

rdtsc 9y ago

> internal combustion engine has too many moving parts. It does. But then the simple EVs aren't a that much cheaper than those complicated ICE cars. Where is the $9k efficiency basic model that someone in a lower income bracket could afford? Mention the government incentives and credits and talk about the cheap recharge cost compared to a tank of gas, less maintenance costs, and all of the sudden a lot of people will start listening. Most EV cars start at $20k and up from what I remember. That's more than the MSRP of a new Honda Civic. Few American consumers will choose a more expensive model, with less range, and long recharge cycle. There'd have to be some serious tax incentives/penalties or a huge jump in gas prices for people to start seriously considering EVs as their next car. I get the point of electric taxis about maintenance, but there are only so many taxis around. Some are even regulated based on a medallion system. So I am afraid just taxis might not be enough to revolutionize the car industry.

m_mueller 9y ago
EV price will mainly depend on how well Li-Ion batteries scale up in a mass market. I'd imagine at some point more and more of the price will go towards the part that cannot be made cheaper (and will actually increase in price with higher demand): Lithium. On the other hand, having efficient refurb/recycle processes for older batteries may solve that, assuming that there's enough Lithium to serve the global market once over in the first place. If not I guess it's either time for a new battery technology or time to mine asteroids or the moon.

chx 9y ago

There are some, how to call, secondary effects which can avalanche real quick. For example, if gas stations begin to close (or just give up regular gasoline still selling diesel to trucks) that can become a self strengthening death spiral incredibly fast.

akamaka 9y ago

Electric vehicles have not yet turned out to be more reliable or cheaper to repair. Tesla vehicles are lower than average on both of those measures. I used to be very optimistic because of how simple electric cars are in theory, but in practice, a century of refinement of internal combustion engines has not yet been beaten.

ensignavenger 9y ago
The two Tesla models that are available right now are not 'average' cost vehicles, though. How do the fair against similarly positioned vehicles? I would expect Teslas to be a bit more expensive to maintain at this point, as parts availability and third party after market parts manufacturers are about non-existent for them. As electric vehicles get more popular and mainstream, this problems (as far as EVs in general) will likely be resolved.
sitkack 9y ago
Cite? I know quite a few people that have Nissan Leafs and have had literally zero maintenance.
deleted 9y ago
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gozur88 9y ago

He's wildly optimistic on the timeline to the point of delusion, but it's probably true we'll transition to automated electric cars within a few decades.

MR4D 9y ago

It would be interesting to see if lithium mining and production could be scaled up fast enough to produce 15+ million cars per year (US only). Something tells me that this could be an ecological disaster even greater than coal. The article may be correct on the rationale, but the timing seems fast given everyone's concern about the planet. Also consider that oil comes from a small hole in the ground, and already has refineries in place to turn it into gasoline, while last year the whole world only produced about 650,000 tons of lithium. Each Tesla uses about 65Kg of it.

sitkack 9y ago
One car is going to be able to service 4-10 people, old cars will still exist. Think of the transition from incandescent to fluorescent to LED, no one expected that LED would take over so soon, that the efficiencies and bulb life would surpass CFL as quickly. How many LED bulb assembly lines do we need? Probably 1. For the whole world.
mywittyname 9y ago
I think recycling will be a significant source of these metals by the time the world is producing 30+M EVs a year.

woodandsteel 9y ago

It's important to understand that oil companies all over the world will be going bankrupt if consumption falls 30%. To start, they all have huge investments that they borrowed money for on the calculation of making a certain level of revenue for 40 or so years. A big drop in demand will mean less sales, but also that prices per barrel, which are already low, will go down even further. The result would be maybe half the total revenue, so they won't be able to pay off their loans and will have to declare bankruptcy.