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Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

87 points by neo4sure 7y ago

psadri 7y ago
The question on my mind is what else will this freed up oil will be used for? One area could be cheaper fuel for aviation? More plastics? This of course ignores the environmental cost of continuing to use oil.
- remarkEon 7y ago
  [Deleted] Edit: well crap thanks mobile. Wrong thread.
  - sigzero 7y ago
    I think you are posting on the wrong thread.
- api 7y ago
  If oil demand falls a lot of tar sands and offshore and fracking and other hard to get oil will become uneconomical to extract, causing (paradoxically) supply to appear to contract too. The oil age could ratchet down via a series of price spikes and contractions just as it ratcheted up via price spikes and expansions.
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    Thing I read about the history of oil is energy return on investment went from about 125:1 in 1920 to about 10:1 now and tar sands are worse than that. If countries start slapping carbon taxes on oil, you can quickly see where that goes.
    - api 7y ago
      It costs so much less to drive an EV per mile largely because we get electricity from sources with a much higher EROEI than present day oil. Gas, coal, solar, wind, nuclear, and hydro are all much better. The low energy return of current oil is priced in. BTW it's not just obtaining the oil but refining it. Oil refineries use a ton of power usually from electricity, gas, or by burning some of the oil itself. Heavier oil like tar sands and shale takes more energy to refine, as does high sulfur oil. Tar sands is so bad I've heard it described as being almost more a way of very indirectly converting other sources of energy into oil than a source of energy.
      - Gibbon1 7y ago
        Yes. From an energy efficiency point of view we'd be better off burning the oil used to make gasoline in a thermal power plant. Your comment about Tar Sands reminds me of a quote I read a long time ago about the price of coal being linked strongly to the price of diesel. Not to mention fracking boom is just a way to turn free central bank loans into Nat Gas.
  - quaquaqua1 7y ago
    I think new uses and new users will continue to abound, so I don't think humans will radically reduce their consumption. One evidence of this is just the sheer number of cars on the road these days. Human population is increasing, and an abundance of cheap ICE cars means everyone is driving to work at least in suburban areas. In the past, busses and bikes were selected because cars weren't economical for certain individuals. Now nearly everyone at our office drives a car by themselves to work. No more car pooling, biking, ubering, bus, train, walking, etc.
    - circlefavshape 7y ago
      Where do you work? That is not the case at anyplace I've ever worked
      - quaquaqua1 7y ago
        In Nassau County NY where the majority of buildings here are either single family homes or corporate office buildings with giant parking lots. Of course just 30 miles east you have NYC where probably less than 5% of people drive to work or own a car, period. But on a geographical basis, most of this population center is designed for cars and it is very common for a 1 hour trip (60 miles) to take 2.5 hours during rush hour(s).
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  It's a good question. Along with oil came a tremendous amount of dependence. See railroads 50 years before that. Everyone who remembers those battles is dead. But that bargan with the devil is still with us and is likely heat back up as governments try get out from under it.
- sremani 7y ago
  Petrochemicals are still an important component of industrial agriculture needed for feeding 7 billion people around the world. If oil prices fall too low, Persian Gulf and Russian borders become unstable and from there its any ones guess, how things would take shape. Energy is heavily interlinked with geo-politics and if Persian Gulf is out of the game even for few months - millions of people will starve to death. The only silver lining is that North America is self-sufficient in ONG for the coming years, and that is not the case for much or Europe, Asia and Africa.
  - vvanders 7y ago
    Honestly the electrification of farm equipment is coming too. For a tractor you want two things: weight and torque. Electric drivetrains provide both. Tractors have way more complex transmissions(HST, Power Shuttle, etc) that all goes away with a VFD electric drivetrain. Large traction motors already exist(all cargo trains these days are diesel-electric). The lower operating costs and lower maintenance help as well. If I could have bought our Kubota in an electric drivetrain I would have done it in a second
    - cortesoft 7y ago
      I think they are talking about fertilizers, not fuel.
- neltnerb 7y ago
  If the cost of extracting it is too high, it stays in the ground. Otherwise, it gets used as a precursor for higher value products like plastics. The caloric value of a hydrocarbon is approximately the minimum price it can be sold for. Almost any other use will give higher returns to justify paying a higher price. Though hopefully it doesn't just mean more plastic everything, that would be disappointing.
  - seventhtiger 7y ago
    Saudi Arabia extracts oil at $7-$15/barrel. The price should go up over time, but constant innovation in exploration and extraction drives it down also. Their reserves haven't gone down for 20 years because they are constantly exploring more fields. Currently their economy can probably remain stable until as low as $70/barrel for long periods of time although growth would be difficult. If their diversification efforts succeed in the next decade they will be less reliant and will be able to sustain much lower prices. Every last drop in the Persian Gulf is economical for the foreseeable future. Fuel is the least profitable and they are already switching to petrochemicals. Oil is not going away this century.
    - woodandsteel 7y ago
      >Oil is not going away this century. No, it is going to go away. That is because most governments are scared to death of global climate change and are passing laws to do away with fossil fuel consumption. It's not happening all at once, but basically as fast as the technology comes into place to replace fossil fuels.
      - seventhtiger 7y ago
        Even if we stop fossil fuels tomorrow oil is here to stay. How long would it take to develop new aircraft? How long would it take to stop all industries from using plastic, and all agriculture from using petrochemical fertilizer? Not all governments are in on some grand conspiracy. Many governments would greatly benefit. But to make the switch now would mean severe damage to their economy and wellbeing. Even medicine relies heavily on petrochemicals inside and outside of the hospital. Even if a country chooses to sacrifice itself to benefit the common good, it might not be enough to affect actual environmental change.
- flukus 7y ago
  ~70% of oil is used for transportation. Take away the ability to amortize the enormous infrastructure costs at the gas pump and it's not clear that oil will get cheaper, the exact opposite may happen.
Scoundreller 7y ago
I know I'm in ad hominem territory, but "oh great, another Forbes 'Contributor' article". Dunno if Forbes ever was respectable, but now they're 'sell to the highest bidder'.
inflatableDodo 7y ago
>“For a given capital outlay on oil and renewables, how much useful energy at the wheel do we get? Our analysis indicates that for the same capital outlay today, new wind and solar-energy projects in tandem with battery electric vehicles will produce six to seven times more useful energy at the wheels than will oil at $60 per barrel for gasoline powered light-duty vehicles, and three to four times more than will oil at $60 per barrel for light-duty vehicles running on diesel,” If these figures are even in the rough ballpark of being correct, then it is all over bar the shouting. >"More than a third (36%) of the crude oil produced today goes to fuel vehicles susceptible to electrification" https://www.electricclassiccars.co.uk/ https://www.electricclassiccars.co.uk/
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  Coffin nail for small internal combustion engines is maintenance and life span. I think maintenance is around 5 to 10 cents a mile. And the engines only last 4-8000 hours. Maintenance on electric motors is nil. And the life span is 25-50,000 hours at least for industrial motors. Kicker once price parity is archived gasoline powered cars will be more expensive to operate even if the cost of gasoline was zero.
RickJWagner 7y ago
Great! Now all we need is an electric car that fits the economic footprint of a gas car and provides decent range. I'll take a performance model, please.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Lead time on a Performance Model 3 is 2-3 weeks. I know because I just ordered one today for my brother. Order away!
- cylinder 7y ago
  Which car runs on a gas?
  - basementcat 7y ago
    Toyota Mirai, Honda Clarity, Hyundai Nexo just to name a few.
klwejchkwejrhc 7y ago
>renewable electricity has a short-run marginal cost of zero, is cleaner environmentally, much easier to transport and could readily replace up to 40% of global oil demand Hmm, not sure about that "much easier to transport" part. A cube 3 meters on a side can contain enough gasoline to power the average car for its entire lifespan. The gasoline is a liquid, it is relatively easy to move it between containers. Any technology that is capable of moving macroscopic amounts of matter is capable of moving gasoline. You can haul it on a bicycle, you can haul it on an airplane. To transport electricity you need to make sure there are power lines and batteries arranged in a certain way.
- vvanders 7y ago
  It's a shame that we don't have the technology to pull energy from the sun and turn it into electricity.
  - feedbeef 7y ago
    Or from the air. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wireless_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wireless_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla_electric_car_hoax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla_electric_car_hoax
- localhost 7y ago
  That really is a remarkable visualization! So much so that I had to compute it for myself - 27,000 liters of gasoline will move an average car 287,000 km assuming 9.4L/100km which is the average 2017 fuel economy for a "car, light truck, SUV" in the US.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_automobiles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_automobiles
  - userbinator 7y ago
    Relatedly, fuel consumption can be measured in square meters: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/325733/why-can-fuel-economy-be-measured-in-square-meters https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/325733/why-can-f...
arbuge 7y ago
> renewable electricity has a short-run marginal cost of zero This seems to be the crux of the argument. It certainly doesn't make sense to me. Obviously oil would find it hard to compete with electricity if it was free, but amortizing the cost of renewable power plants means that is unlikely any time soon.
- epistasis 7y ago
  There are times of the year where renewable energy is free right now, and production is curtailed. There are also some places where prices go slightly negative because the producers' tax credit schemes give them revenue in excess of the negative price.
- Iv 7y ago
  Marginal cost = cost of producing one more unit of something (energy in that case) once your capital has been spent. It just says that if you have a solar panel, you don't need to spend additional money to make it produce electricity. Unlike, say, a diesel generator. It is purely capital spending, zero marginal cost. Another way of counting would be to say that _not_ producing costs you money as you are losing capital over the panels' lifetime.
ccsnags 7y ago
Lithium batteries aren’t green at all. Going to EVs just changes the impact on the environment. If we can’t solve the end of life issues with lithium batteries, we need to look at them as a technology adjacent to petroleum when it pertains to environmental impact. A true step forward would be an innovation of power storage itself, rather than the mechanisms around it. Build a better gas tank.
- epistasis 7y ago
  I've searched extensively for the environmental damage from lithium batteries, and find very little except vagueness. Can you point out why you think they are not green? I can find much more about humanitarian concerns for the non-lithium metals in the batteries.
- inflatableDodo 7y ago
  Recovery of cobalt from spent lithium-ion batteries using supercritical carbon dioxide extraction - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956053X16300964 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956053X1... The Role of Sub- and Supercritical CO2 as “Processing Solvent” for the Recycling and Sample Preparation of Lithium Ion Battery Electrolytes - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314243271_The_Role_of_Sub-_and_Supercritical_CO2_as_Processing_Solvent_for_the_Recycling_and_Sample_Preparation_of_Lithium_Ion_Battery_Electrolytes https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314243271_The_Role_... Graphite Recycling from Spent Lithium‐Ion Batteries - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cssc.201601062 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cssc.2016010...
- HALtheWise 7y ago
  It seems likely that the end of life for vehicle lithium ion batteries will look roughly similar to end of life for vehicle lead acid batteries today. Namely, lead acid batteries are recycled at a rate of 99.3% in the US, making them the most recycled consumer good. The demand obviously doesn't exist right now because so few electric cars have reached end of life, but it seems like the transitioning the world to battery power will require a one-time investment of a bunch of materials (nickel arguably being the most important) then those same materials will just cycle around the economy for centuries. https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/battery-council-international-lead-battery-recycling/ https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/battery-council-inter...
kristianp 7y ago
The Forbes summary of the report it's covering says this only covers light duty vehicles and up to 40% of oil production. So still plenty of demand for oil for long haul ships and trucks I imagine.
- abhi152 7y ago
  Fuel used in Ships is very different from Gasoline.
  - kristianp 7y ago
    Not sure what you mean? It still comes under the moniker "Oil".
- woodandsteel 7y ago
  No, this also is where things are going for trucks, it just will happen maybe 5 years later.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  Some of the more sustainable long haul truck routes are likely going to go electric. Hydrogen fuel cells likely won't be cost effective for cars, but may disrupt diesel in long haul ships and may be competitive against fast charging for the wilder long haul trucking routes.
emptybits 7y ago
I have questions about the environmental impact of EV batteries when it comes time to replace or dispose of them. I've read a few things, including an old statement by Tesla on the topic.[1] > Tesla: "our lithium ion cells contain no heavy metals, nor any toxic materials. In fact, our cells and Energy Storage System, by law, could be disposed of by putting them in a landfill. However, we have no intention of landfilling our ESS." They go on to say a recycling plan is being implemented. Cool. From an RoHS POV, sure, no heavy metals. But "no toxic materials" and "ready for landfill" blows my mind. Am I naive? I'll assume Tesla is one of the Good Guys, but I predict worse players in the industry will take advantage of loose disposal regulations if there is short term benefit. [1] https://www.tesla.com/blog/mythbusters-part-3-recycling-our-non-toxic-battery-packs https://www.tesla.com/blog/mythbusters-part-3-recycling-our-...
- Iv 7y ago
  There is a lot of FUD spread over EVs right now. There seems to be a lot of people hating to see them branded as "green" technology. I think both the oil industry and the "return to nature"-type ecologists don't like this narrative, but from all I have seen, in terms of environmentalism, EVs are a huge step up.
- eigenloss 7y ago
  People will buy completely wrecked Teslas for $5-20k just to extract and resell the battery modules. Each of the 16 battery modules from an S goes for about $1200 a pop. The secondary market will buy essentially any quantity of lithium cells if the price is below $200/kWh, no questions asked. Recycling efforts are almost always for show. If a cell or module has at least 30% of its original capacity remaining, people will reuse it for stationary storage or weight-insensitive vehicles. Shredding and recovering cathode materials from lithium cells is about as economically nonsensical as recovering silicon from cell phones. There is such a massive worldwide shortage of batteries right now that worrying about dumping them in landfills is beyond pointless. You may as well worry that we're throwing away too many gold bars.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  Lithium-ion battery construction has been constantly changing since its invention in the 90s, but the basics have been the same rather consistently. The batteries are fairly universally "non-toxic" assortments of "light" metals and salts in organic (Carbon-based) solvents. (Lithium itself is Atomic Number 3 on the periodic table; it's an incredibly common light metal. Cobalt and Nickel in the high-20s are generally the highest atomic numbers you see in any of the battery formulas, and many of the compounds are "organic". Neither of which is a direct link between atomic number and organic nature to toxicity of the final compounds using it, see ethanol, but as a first order approximation it's an okay start.) None of the big battery manufacturers (LG Chem and Panasonic are too other huge manufacturers to compare to Tesla for instance) are doing much at all different from Tesla. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Environmental_impact_and_recycling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Environmen...
Animats 7y ago
Bloomberg has a study.[1] But they see electric vehicles hitting 50% of new sales about 20 years out. The battery Ford F150 is two years out.. At that point, most consumer vehicles can potentially be electric, but the electrics will not be lower in initial cost yet. Bloomberg sees that happening in 2024. Conversion may happen faster in China. Already, there are heavy incentives to go electric in Beijing. As in, you can get a car license much more easily. [1] https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook/ https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook/ [2] https://thinkprogress.org/electric-vehicles-cheaper-gasoline-cars-e4c86bd2aebe/ https://thinkprogress.org/electric-vehicles-cheaper-gasoline...
- Iv 7y ago
  FYI we are at about 5% yearly now. More than half the EVs produced last year were produced in China, where the government strong subsidizes electric vehicles and taxes fuel vehicles.
Iv 7y ago
There is also another strong incentive for EVs in a renewable electricity scenario: smoothing the intermittence. Nowadays, electricity grids try to incentivize consumers to use electricity at night more, as they try to smoothen the consumption baseline. With solar and wind, you have huge spikes of production and some gaps as well. Expect electricity to be very expensive at some time and very cheap (even free or negative price) at some other time. In such a context, storage capacity becomes very quickly a good investment.
gingabriska 7y ago
Does it mean plastic will become expensive? Meanwhile incinerators in Sweden burn plastics (very low quality fuel) for heating and electricity and it's labeled as recycling.
IloveHN84 7y ago
But all the small electric cars are just starting at the shamed price of 35/40k € ( Peugeot 208, VW ID.3 and so on). That is a huge barrier of entrance. At the same price, one can buy a BMW or Audi. We need an economic model to let the EV industry boom
- lnsru 7y ago
  One probably needs to develop and produce EVs in cheaper country than Germany. BMW and VW engineers earn ~100k € early, they are unionized and can’t be fired. As a result one gets ID.3 for 40k€. That’s already very expensive car for most Germans despite some pre-orders: https://electrek.co/2019/07/22/vw-zwickau-factory-electric-cars/ https://electrek.co/2019/07/22/vw-zwickau-factory-electric-c... Last but not least: electricity. If you don’t have a garage, EV does not make sense. No easy overnight charging, I don’t want to park mile or tho away my car for few hours just for charging. And taxes! Most of petrol/diesel price in Germany are taxes, electricity is taxed much lower. Can government loose this stream of income that easy? Or electricity will be taxed same way in the future?
  - Thlom 7y ago
    With range now at 500km+ for many cars that's not a huge issue for most people. If you can't charge at home, maybe you can charge at work, at least sometimes? Or the grocery store has a fast charger so you can charge when you shop? Or the shopping mall or whatever. Unless you have an extreme commute you don't have to charge every day.
  - imtringued 7y ago
    ICEs are affordable. Engineer wages don't seem to be the limiting factor. The problem is that the car companies don't want to invest into battery factories because they hope someone else pays the bill first.
    - lnsru 7y ago
      You are right, Sono Motors in Munich did their development on shoestring budget. I was asked to join electric camper startup, they estimated their development budget under 2M€ using off shelf parts.
Proven 7y ago
Complete nonsense! Why isn't the more competitive energy (electric, according to Forbes) taxed? Instead, it is heavily subsidized. Why does it need subsidies? Where does Forbes find these authors? Geez...
JackPoach 7y ago
The entire article is 100% bullshit and has nothing to do with EV per se. All you need to do is look at general electricity prices, which have been going up, not down, especially in the countries that have the highest renewable rate (Denmark or Germany). https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Line-graph-of-average-electricity-price-for-households-for-2005-2015-in-EU-countries_fig3_323445413 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Line-graph-of-average-el... Once electricity prices start collapsing and battery capacity issues are resolved, I'll start believing the story.
- dwaltrip 7y ago
  Time is not an axis in the graphs you linked, so they don't support your statement.
- onion2k 7y ago
  Here in the UK the price of petrol has gone up more than 50% in the past 20 years. So long as electricity is increasing in price more slowly its still more attractive as a fuel source.
  - fromthestart 7y ago
    I imagine that has more to with taxes than anything else. Adjusted for inflation, petroleum is quite low compared to it's price over much of the last 3-4 decades.
    - onion2k 7y ago
      The underlying cause doesn't make any difference to the consumer though. If you're saying people don't want electric cars because the cost of electricity is increasing you have to weigh that against the cost of alternatives, and electricity is still better.
- phaemon 7y ago
  Neither Denmark nor Germany have the "highest renewable rate" of the countries listed on that graph. Denmark is 4th and Germany is 17th in the EU.
greglindahl 7y ago
Note that this is a "Forbes Contributor", i.e. a user of the Forbes blogging platform. I wish HN wouldn't label these with "forbes.com" because it's even shittier quality than Forbes.
nordsieck 7y ago
> Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days As A Transport Fuel Are Numbered I know the article was about cars, but fossil fuel will always have a place as aviation fuel. The only thing I can currently see ending that trend is widespread use of vacuum tunnel trains.
- doctor_eval 7y ago
  I see the claim that we need fossil fuels for airlines and rockets raised frequently, but once we have widespread renewable electricity, what’s the barrier to creating fuel from air and water, using electricity? AFAIK, it’s not really fossil fuels that are needed for planes and rockets, but high energy density liquid fuels, and these can surely be created renewably once we have a renewable energy infrastructure. Or have I missed something?
  - olau 7y ago
    Yes. And small electric planes are in fact beginning to show up. It is my understanding that going electric enables more efficient designs, and with those one or two decades of further battery tech development might actually get us large planes too.
    - Gibbon1 7y ago
      That Israeli company Eviation is claiming their yet to fly electric plane will have a range of 500 miles. I'm reserving judgement till I see it. If they pull that off it's a line in the sand.
      - doctor_eval 7y ago
        This electric aircraft gets 60 minutes endurance and is flying today (apparently): https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-04/first-electric-plane-passenger-flights-in-australia-to-rottnest/9304424 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-04/first-electric-plane-...
        7y ago
Anothernhym 7y ago
OPEC and the United States keep fossil fuels artificially inflated through constant wars and their barbaric sanctions against Iran & Venezuela. How much would a barrel of oil cost if they were allowed to sell on the free market?
- reacweb 7y ago
  "fossil fuel" is a limited resource (not renewable) full of interesting chemical molecules. It is a shame that it is wasted for energy production. IMHO, it is too cheap.
- Anothernhym 7y ago
  Downvoted for not having amerikkkan hatred for Iran & Venezuela. My facts are indisputable. OPEC, Russia & 'murrica use war and famine to keep oil prices high. Prove me wrong.
akeck 7y ago
This writer works through some upper limits of vehicle electrification, based on cobalt reserves: https://syonyk.blogspot.com/2015/12/cobalt-requirements-for-global-electric.html https://syonyk.blogspot.com/2015/12/cobalt-requirements-for-...
- tim333 7y ago
  The writer doesn't seem to distinguish between reserves and resources, a common mistake in these kinds of articles. In normal mining use reserves are areas of ore you've mapped out and shown to be economically extractable by drilling holes, taking samples etc, resources are the amount or stuff out there. Reserves always only go a few years ahead because it takes money to find them, drill them and so on. That doesn't mean we're running out.

87 points by neo4sure 7y ago

The question on my mind is what else will this freed up oil will be used for? One area could be cheaper fuel for aviation? More plastics? This of course ignores the environmental cost of continuing to use oil.

remarkEon 7y ago
[Deleted] Edit: well crap thanks mobile. Wrong thread.
- sigzero 7y ago
  I think you are posting on the wrong thread.
api 7y ago
If oil demand falls a lot of tar sands and offshore and fracking and other hard to get oil will become uneconomical to extract, causing (paradoxically) supply to appear to contract too. The oil age could ratchet down via a series of price spikes and contractions just as it ratcheted up via price spikes and expansions.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  Thing I read about the history of oil is energy return on investment went from about 125:1 in 1920 to about 10:1 now and tar sands are worse than that. If countries start slapping carbon taxes on oil, you can quickly see where that goes.
  - api 7y ago
    It costs so much less to drive an EV per mile largely because we get electricity from sources with a much higher EROEI than present day oil. Gas, coal, solar, wind, nuclear, and hydro are all much better. The low energy return of current oil is priced in. BTW it's not just obtaining the oil but refining it. Oil refineries use a ton of power usually from electricity, gas, or by burning some of the oil itself. Heavier oil like tar sands and shale takes more energy to refine, as does high sulfur oil. Tar sands is so bad I've heard it described as being almost more a way of very indirectly converting other sources of energy into oil than a source of energy.
    - Gibbon1 7y ago
      Yes. From an energy efficiency point of view we'd be better off burning the oil used to make gasoline in a thermal power plant. Your comment about Tar Sands reminds me of a quote I read a long time ago about the price of coal being linked strongly to the price of diesel. Not to mention fracking boom is just a way to turn free central bank loans into Nat Gas.
- quaquaqua1 7y ago
  I think new uses and new users will continue to abound, so I don't think humans will radically reduce their consumption. One evidence of this is just the sheer number of cars on the road these days. Human population is increasing, and an abundance of cheap ICE cars means everyone is driving to work at least in suburban areas. In the past, busses and bikes were selected because cars weren't economical for certain individuals. Now nearly everyone at our office drives a car by themselves to work. No more car pooling, biking, ubering, bus, train, walking, etc.
  - circlefavshape 7y ago
    Where do you work? That is not the case at anyplace I've ever worked
    - quaquaqua1 7y ago
      In Nassau County NY where the majority of buildings here are either single family homes or corporate office buildings with giant parking lots. Of course just 30 miles east you have NYC where probably less than 5% of people drive to work or own a car, period. But on a geographical basis, most of this population center is designed for cars and it is very common for a 1 hour trip (60 miles) to take 2.5 hours during rush hour(s).
Gibbon1 7y ago
It's a good question. Along with oil came a tremendous amount of dependence. See railroads 50 years before that. Everyone who remembers those battles is dead. But that bargan with the devil is still with us and is likely heat back up as governments try get out from under it.
sremani 7y ago
Petrochemicals are still an important component of industrial agriculture needed for feeding 7 billion people around the world. If oil prices fall too low, Persian Gulf and Russian borders become unstable and from there its any ones guess, how things would take shape. Energy is heavily interlinked with geo-politics and if Persian Gulf is out of the game even for few months - millions of people will starve to death. The only silver lining is that North America is self-sufficient in ONG for the coming years, and that is not the case for much or Europe, Asia and Africa.
- vvanders 7y ago
  Honestly the electrification of farm equipment is coming too. For a tractor you want two things: weight and torque. Electric drivetrains provide both. Tractors have way more complex transmissions(HST, Power Shuttle, etc) that all goes away with a VFD electric drivetrain. Large traction motors already exist(all cargo trains these days are diesel-electric). The lower operating costs and lower maintenance help as well. If I could have bought our Kubota in an electric drivetrain I would have done it in a second
  - cortesoft 7y ago
    I think they are talking about fertilizers, not fuel.
neltnerb 7y ago
If the cost of extracting it is too high, it stays in the ground. Otherwise, it gets used as a precursor for higher value products like plastics. The caloric value of a hydrocarbon is approximately the minimum price it can be sold for. Almost any other use will give higher returns to justify paying a higher price. Though hopefully it doesn't just mean more plastic everything, that would be disappointing.
- seventhtiger 7y ago
  Saudi Arabia extracts oil at $7-$15/barrel. The price should go up over time, but constant innovation in exploration and extraction drives it down also. Their reserves haven't gone down for 20 years because they are constantly exploring more fields. Currently their economy can probably remain stable until as low as $70/barrel for long periods of time although growth would be difficult. If their diversification efforts succeed in the next decade they will be less reliant and will be able to sustain much lower prices. Every last drop in the Persian Gulf is economical for the foreseeable future. Fuel is the least profitable and they are already switching to petrochemicals. Oil is not going away this century.
  - woodandsteel 7y ago
    >Oil is not going away this century. No, it is going to go away. That is because most governments are scared to death of global climate change and are passing laws to do away with fossil fuel consumption. It's not happening all at once, but basically as fast as the technology comes into place to replace fossil fuels.
    - seventhtiger 7y ago
      Even if we stop fossil fuels tomorrow oil is here to stay. How long would it take to develop new aircraft? How long would it take to stop all industries from using plastic, and all agriculture from using petrochemical fertilizer? Not all governments are in on some grand conspiracy. Many governments would greatly benefit. But to make the switch now would mean severe damage to their economy and wellbeing. Even medicine relies heavily on petrochemicals inside and outside of the hospital. Even if a country chooses to sacrifice itself to benefit the common good, it might not be enough to affect actual environmental change.
flukus 7y ago
~70% of oil is used for transportation. Take away the ability to amortize the enormous infrastructure costs at the gas pump and it's not clear that oil will get cheaper, the exact opposite may happen.

Scoundreller 7y ago

I know I'm in ad hominem territory, but "oh great, another Forbes 'Contributor' article". Dunno if Forbes ever was respectable, but now they're 'sell to the highest bidder'.

inflatableDodo 7y ago

>“For a given capital outlay on oil and renewables, how much useful energy at the wheel do we get? Our analysis indicates that for the same capital outlay today, new wind and solar-energy projects in tandem with battery electric vehicles will produce six to seven times more useful energy at the wheels than will oil at $60 per barrel for gasoline powered light-duty vehicles, and three to four times more than will oil at $60 per barrel for light-duty vehicles running on diesel,” If these figures are even in the rough ballpark of being correct, then it is all over bar the shouting. >"More than a third (36%) of the crude oil produced today goes to fuel vehicles susceptible to electrification" https://www.electricclassiccars.co.uk/ https://www.electricclassiccars.co.uk/

Gibbon1 7y ago
Coffin nail for small internal combustion engines is maintenance and life span. I think maintenance is around 5 to 10 cents a mile. And the engines only last 4-8000 hours. Maintenance on electric motors is nil. And the life span is 25-50,000 hours at least for industrial motors. Kicker once price parity is archived gasoline powered cars will be more expensive to operate even if the cost of gasoline was zero.

RickJWagner 7y ago

Great! Now all we need is an electric car that fits the economic footprint of a gas car and provides decent range. I'll take a performance model, please.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Lead time on a Performance Model 3 is 2-3 weeks. I know because I just ordered one today for my brother. Order away!
cylinder 7y ago
Which car runs on a gas?
- basementcat 7y ago
  Toyota Mirai, Honda Clarity, Hyundai Nexo just to name a few.

klwejchkwejrhc 7y ago

>renewable electricity has a short-run marginal cost of zero, is cleaner environmentally, much easier to transport and could readily replace up to 40% of global oil demand Hmm, not sure about that "much easier to transport" part. A cube 3 meters on a side can contain enough gasoline to power the average car for its entire lifespan. The gasoline is a liquid, it is relatively easy to move it between containers. Any technology that is capable of moving macroscopic amounts of matter is capable of moving gasoline. You can haul it on a bicycle, you can haul it on an airplane. To transport electricity you need to make sure there are power lines and batteries arranged in a certain way.

vvanders 7y ago
It's a shame that we don't have the technology to pull energy from the sun and turn it into electricity.
- feedbeef 7y ago
  Or from the air. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wireless_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wireless_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla_electric_car_hoax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla_electric_car_hoax
localhost 7y ago
That really is a remarkable visualization! So much so that I had to compute it for myself - 27,000 liters of gasoline will move an average car 287,000 km assuming 9.4L/100km which is the average 2017 fuel economy for a "car, light truck, SUV" in the US.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_automobiles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_automobiles
- userbinator 7y ago
  Relatedly, fuel consumption can be measured in square meters: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/325733/why-can-fuel-economy-be-measured-in-square-meters https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/325733/why-can-f...

arbuge 7y ago

> renewable electricity has a short-run marginal cost of zero This seems to be the crux of the argument. It certainly doesn't make sense to me. Obviously oil would find it hard to compete with electricity if it was free, but amortizing the cost of renewable power plants means that is unlikely any time soon.

epistasis 7y ago
There are times of the year where renewable energy is free right now, and production is curtailed. There are also some places where prices go slightly negative because the producers' tax credit schemes give them revenue in excess of the negative price.
Iv 7y ago
Marginal cost = cost of producing one more unit of something (energy in that case) once your capital has been spent. It just says that if you have a solar panel, you don't need to spend additional money to make it produce electricity. Unlike, say, a diesel generator. It is purely capital spending, zero marginal cost. Another way of counting would be to say that _not_ producing costs you money as you are losing capital over the panels' lifetime.

ccsnags 7y ago

Lithium batteries aren’t green at all. Going to EVs just changes the impact on the environment. If we can’t solve the end of life issues with lithium batteries, we need to look at them as a technology adjacent to petroleum when it pertains to environmental impact. A true step forward would be an innovation of power storage itself, rather than the mechanisms around it. Build a better gas tank.

epistasis 7y ago
I've searched extensively for the environmental damage from lithium batteries, and find very little except vagueness. Can you point out why you think they are not green? I can find much more about humanitarian concerns for the non-lithium metals in the batteries.
inflatableDodo 7y ago
Recovery of cobalt from spent lithium-ion batteries using supercritical carbon dioxide extraction - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956053X16300964 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956053X1... The Role of Sub- and Supercritical CO2 as “Processing Solvent” for the Recycling and Sample Preparation of Lithium Ion Battery Electrolytes - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314243271_The_Role_of_Sub-_and_Supercritical_CO2_as_Processing_Solvent_for_the_Recycling_and_Sample_Preparation_of_Lithium_Ion_Battery_Electrolytes https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314243271_The_Role_... Graphite Recycling from Spent Lithium‐Ion Batteries - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cssc.201601062 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cssc.2016010...
HALtheWise 7y ago
It seems likely that the end of life for vehicle lithium ion batteries will look roughly similar to end of life for vehicle lead acid batteries today. Namely, lead acid batteries are recycled at a rate of 99.3% in the US, making them the most recycled consumer good. The demand obviously doesn't exist right now because so few electric cars have reached end of life, but it seems like the transitioning the world to battery power will require a one-time investment of a bunch of materials (nickel arguably being the most important) then those same materials will just cycle around the economy for centuries. https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/battery-council-international-lead-battery-recycling/ https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/battery-council-inter...

kristianp 7y ago

The Forbes summary of the report it's covering says this only covers light duty vehicles and up to 40% of oil production. So still plenty of demand for oil for long haul ships and trucks I imagine.

abhi152 7y ago
Fuel used in Ships is very different from Gasoline.
- kristianp 7y ago
  Not sure what you mean? It still comes under the moniker "Oil".
woodandsteel 7y ago
No, this also is where things are going for trucks, it just will happen maybe 5 years later.
WorldMaker 7y ago
Some of the more sustainable long haul truck routes are likely going to go electric. Hydrogen fuel cells likely won't be cost effective for cars, but may disrupt diesel in long haul ships and may be competitive against fast charging for the wilder long haul trucking routes.

emptybits 7y ago

I have questions about the environmental impact of EV batteries when it comes time to replace or dispose of them. I've read a few things, including an old statement by Tesla on the topic.[1] > Tesla: "our lithium ion cells contain no heavy metals, nor any toxic materials. In fact, our cells and Energy Storage System, by law, could be disposed of by putting them in a landfill. However, we have no intention of landfilling our ESS." They go on to say a recycling plan is being implemented. Cool. From an RoHS POV, sure, no heavy metals. But "no toxic materials" and "ready for landfill" blows my mind. Am I naive? I'll assume Tesla is one of the Good Guys, but I predict worse players in the industry will take advantage of loose disposal regulations if there is short term benefit. [1] https://www.tesla.com/blog/mythbusters-part-3-recycling-our-non-toxic-battery-packs https://www.tesla.com/blog/mythbusters-part-3-recycling-our-...

Iv 7y ago
There is a lot of FUD spread over EVs right now. There seems to be a lot of people hating to see them branded as "green" technology. I think both the oil industry and the "return to nature"-type ecologists don't like this narrative, but from all I have seen, in terms of environmentalism, EVs are a huge step up.
eigenloss 7y ago
People will buy completely wrecked Teslas for $5-20k just to extract and resell the battery modules. Each of the 16 battery modules from an S goes for about $1200 a pop. The secondary market will buy essentially any quantity of lithium cells if the price is below $200/kWh, no questions asked. Recycling efforts are almost always for show. If a cell or module has at least 30% of its original capacity remaining, people will reuse it for stationary storage or weight-insensitive vehicles. Shredding and recovering cathode materials from lithium cells is about as economically nonsensical as recovering silicon from cell phones. There is such a massive worldwide shortage of batteries right now that worrying about dumping them in landfills is beyond pointless. You may as well worry that we're throwing away too many gold bars.
WorldMaker 7y ago
Lithium-ion battery construction has been constantly changing since its invention in the 90s, but the basics have been the same rather consistently. The batteries are fairly universally "non-toxic" assortments of "light" metals and salts in organic (Carbon-based) solvents. (Lithium itself is Atomic Number 3 on the periodic table; it's an incredibly common light metal. Cobalt and Nickel in the high-20s are generally the highest atomic numbers you see in any of the battery formulas, and many of the compounds are "organic". Neither of which is a direct link between atomic number and organic nature to toxicity of the final compounds using it, see ethanol, but as a first order approximation it's an okay start.) None of the big battery manufacturers (LG Chem and Panasonic are too other huge manufacturers to compare to Tesla for instance) are doing much at all different from Tesla. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Environmental_impact_and_recycling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Environmen...

Animats 7y ago

Bloomberg has a study.[1] But they see electric vehicles hitting 50% of new sales about 20 years out. The battery Ford F150 is two years out.. At that point, most consumer vehicles can potentially be electric, but the electrics will not be lower in initial cost yet. Bloomberg sees that happening in 2024. Conversion may happen faster in China. Already, there are heavy incentives to go electric in Beijing. As in, you can get a car license much more easily. [1] https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook/ https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook/ [2] https://thinkprogress.org/electric-vehicles-cheaper-gasoline-cars-e4c86bd2aebe/ https://thinkprogress.org/electric-vehicles-cheaper-gasoline...

Iv 7y ago
FYI we are at about 5% yearly now. More than half the EVs produced last year were produced in China, where the government strong subsidizes electric vehicles and taxes fuel vehicles.

Iv 7y ago

There is also another strong incentive for EVs in a renewable electricity scenario: smoothing the intermittence. Nowadays, electricity grids try to incentivize consumers to use electricity at night more, as they try to smoothen the consumption baseline. With solar and wind, you have huge spikes of production and some gaps as well. Expect electricity to be very expensive at some time and very cheap (even free or negative price) at some other time. In such a context, storage capacity becomes very quickly a good investment.

gingabriska 7y ago

Does it mean plastic will become expensive? Meanwhile incinerators in Sweden burn plastics (very low quality fuel) for heating and electricity and it's labeled as recycling.

IloveHN84 7y ago

But all the small electric cars are just starting at the shamed price of 35/40k € ( Peugeot 208, VW ID.3 and so on). That is a huge barrier of entrance. At the same price, one can buy a BMW or Audi. We need an economic model to let the EV industry boom

lnsru 7y ago
One probably needs to develop and produce EVs in cheaper country than Germany. BMW and VW engineers earn ~100k € early, they are unionized and can’t be fired. As a result one gets ID.3 for 40k€. That’s already very expensive car for most Germans despite some pre-orders: https://electrek.co/2019/07/22/vw-zwickau-factory-electric-cars/ https://electrek.co/2019/07/22/vw-zwickau-factory-electric-c... Last but not least: electricity. If you don’t have a garage, EV does not make sense. No easy overnight charging, I don’t want to park mile or tho away my car for few hours just for charging. And taxes! Most of petrol/diesel price in Germany are taxes, electricity is taxed much lower. Can government loose this stream of income that easy? Or electricity will be taxed same way in the future?
- Thlom 7y ago
  With range now at 500km+ for many cars that's not a huge issue for most people. If you can't charge at home, maybe you can charge at work, at least sometimes? Or the grocery store has a fast charger so you can charge when you shop? Or the shopping mall or whatever. Unless you have an extreme commute you don't have to charge every day.
- imtringued 7y ago
  ICEs are affordable. Engineer wages don't seem to be the limiting factor. The problem is that the car companies don't want to invest into battery factories because they hope someone else pays the bill first.
  - lnsru 7y ago
    You are right, Sono Motors in Munich did their development on shoestring budget. I was asked to join electric camper startup, they estimated their development budget under 2M€ using off shelf parts.

Proven 7y ago

Complete nonsense! Why isn't the more competitive energy (electric, according to Forbes) taxed? Instead, it is heavily subsidized. Why does it need subsidies? Where does Forbes find these authors? Geez...

JackPoach 7y ago

The entire article is 100% bullshit and has nothing to do with EV per se. All you need to do is look at general electricity prices, which have been going up, not down, especially in the countries that have the highest renewable rate (Denmark or Germany). https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Line-graph-of-average-electricity-price-for-households-for-2005-2015-in-EU-countries_fig3_323445413 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Line-graph-of-average-el... Once electricity prices start collapsing and battery capacity issues are resolved, I'll start believing the story.

dwaltrip 7y ago
Time is not an axis in the graphs you linked, so they don't support your statement.
onion2k 7y ago
Here in the UK the price of petrol has gone up more than 50% in the past 20 years. So long as electricity is increasing in price more slowly its still more attractive as a fuel source.
- fromthestart 7y ago
  I imagine that has more to with taxes than anything else. Adjusted for inflation, petroleum is quite low compared to it's price over much of the last 3-4 decades.
  - onion2k 7y ago
    The underlying cause doesn't make any difference to the consumer though. If you're saying people don't want electric cars because the cost of electricity is increasing you have to weigh that against the cost of alternatives, and electricity is still better.
phaemon 7y ago
Neither Denmark nor Germany have the "highest renewable rate" of the countries listed on that graph. Denmark is 4th and Germany is 17th in the EU.

greglindahl 7y ago

Note that this is a "Forbes Contributor", i.e. a user of the Forbes blogging platform. I wish HN wouldn't label these with "forbes.com" because it's even shittier quality than Forbes.

nordsieck 7y ago

> Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days As A Transport Fuel Are Numbered I know the article was about cars, but fossil fuel will always have a place as aviation fuel. The only thing I can currently see ending that trend is widespread use of vacuum tunnel trains.

doctor_eval 7y ago
I see the claim that we need fossil fuels for airlines and rockets raised frequently, but once we have widespread renewable electricity, what’s the barrier to creating fuel from air and water, using electricity? AFAIK, it’s not really fossil fuels that are needed for planes and rockets, but high energy density liquid fuels, and these can surely be created renewably once we have a renewable energy infrastructure. Or have I missed something?
- olau 7y ago
  Yes. And small electric planes are in fact beginning to show up. It is my understanding that going electric enables more efficient designs, and with those one or two decades of further battery tech development might actually get us large planes too.
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    That Israeli company Eviation is claiming their yet to fly electric plane will have a range of 500 miles. I'm reserving judgement till I see it. If they pull that off it's a line in the sand.
    - doctor_eval 7y ago
      This electric aircraft gets 60 minutes endurance and is flying today (apparently): https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-04/first-electric-plane-passenger-flights-in-australia-to-rottnest/9304424 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-04/first-electric-plane-...
      - 7y ago

Anothernhym 7y ago

OPEC and the United States keep fossil fuels artificially inflated through constant wars and their barbaric sanctions against Iran & Venezuela. How much would a barrel of oil cost if they were allowed to sell on the free market?

reacweb 7y ago
"fossil fuel" is a limited resource (not renewable) full of interesting chemical molecules. It is a shame that it is wasted for energy production. IMHO, it is too cheap.
Anothernhym 7y ago
Downvoted for not having amerikkkan hatred for Iran & Venezuela. My facts are indisputable. OPEC, Russia & 'murrica use war and famine to keep oil prices high. Prove me wrong.

akeck 7y ago

This writer works through some upper limits of vehicle electrification, based on cobalt reserves: https://syonyk.blogspot.com/2015/12/cobalt-requirements-for-global-electric.html https://syonyk.blogspot.com/2015/12/cobalt-requirements-for-...

tim333 7y ago
The writer doesn't seem to distinguish between reserves and resources, a common mistake in these kinds of articles. In normal mining use reserves are areas of ore you've mapped out and shown to be economically extractable by drilling holes, taking samples etc, resources are the amount or stuff out there. Reserves always only go a few years ahead because it takes money to find them, drill them and so on. That doesn't mean we're running out.