
How Electric Cars Will Cause the Next Oil Crisis - panarky
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-ev-oil-crisis/
======
readams
There are few routes more prone to vast error than extrapolating exponential
growth far into the future. It may well be the case that electric cars will
prove a vastly important technology, but I can't help but laugh at the graph
extrapolating into 2040, with actual data just one point on the graph all way
to the left.

~~~
lazaroclapp
I sure hope that their estimates are wrong. Only 35% of _new_ cars being
electric by 2040 sounds depressingly little...

~~~
melling
Wait until you find out that the electricity will come from coal. We haven't
solved the clean electricity problem either. Even at _only_ 35%, they're going
to need a lot to of electricity.

"There’s another side to this EV equation: Where will all this electricity
come from? By 2040, electric cars will draw 1,900 terawatt-hours of
electricity, according to BNEF. That’s equivalent to 10 percent of humanity’s
electricity produced last year."

~~~
ZeroGravitas
The extra electricity required is often estimated to be much less then you'd
expect.

One reason is that refining crude oil uses electricity. Some people (such as
Elon Musk) even claim that the electricity used to refine gasoline is so
great, that it roughly equals the amount of electricity that an electric car
would require to go the same distance as a gasoline powered car. In other
words, no extra electricity is required.

A short video on the topic:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQpX-9OyEr4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQpX-9OyEr4)

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ps4fanboy
If the world really does move away from oil in wholesale, this will be good
for the environment but terrible for the middle east. It will likely trigger
the biggest mass migration that the world has ever seen.

~~~
afarrell
How hard would it be to convert their economies to plastics manufacturing as
Dutch disease wanes?

~~~
ps4fanboy
I do not know, what I do know is their economies at this time rely heavily on
oil exports and importing everything else. Places like Dubai only function
because of tax free status propped up by oil. It would take a lot of plastic,
and we are talking about multiple countries as well in the same situation.

[http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/151022160934-cheap...](http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/151022160934-cheap-
oil-middle-east-780x439.png)

If oil prices dont recover in the next 1 - 2 years we will likely see massive
policy changes in the oil producing countries, which are likely to be very
unpopular.

~~~
Animats
"My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my
son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will
ride a camel." \- Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, who made Dubai into a
trade hub.

Oil states that passed peak oil haven't done well afterward. Egypt peaked in
1992[1], and came apart politically on the way down. Libya peaked in 2008.[2]
(Much of that was a war, but they never came back.) Saudi Arabia doesn't seem
to be near peak output yet, but they're well below peak revenue. This is a
real threat to the country's stability, which is purchased with big handouts.
This was a story on YC about two days ago.

[1] [http://crudeoilpeak.info/egypt](http://crudeoilpeak.info/egypt) [2]
[http://crudeoilpeak.info/libya-peak-oil](http://crudeoilpeak.info/libya-peak-
oil)

------
proee
Where's all the power going to come from to power these EVs? The grid won't be
able to support the growth of EV's without some major investments.

This would require more coal and gas plants, which is not helping the
environment any.

~~~
jmesserly
This is addressed in the article:

> The good news is electricity is getting cleaner. Since 2013, the world has
> been adding more electricity-generating capacity from wind and solar than
> from coal, natural gas, and oil combined.

with a link to: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-14/fossil-
fue...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-14/fossil-fuels-just-
lost-the-race-against-renewables)

------
sandworm101
Electric cars /= no more burning oil.

It's hard to find numbers, but the oil burnt to move passenger cars is nowhere
near the entirety of oil consumption, even if looking only at transportation.
Cars are not trucks. An electric replacement of the diesel semi-trailer
remains a long way off. Cars are also not ships (big consumers) aircraft or
trains (smaller consumers). Getting to the point that we are no longer burning
oil for purposes of transportation is far harder than everyone getting a
tesla.

Has anyone seen a practical attempt at an electric long-haul truck, container
ship, or other large diesel engine?

~~~
Retric
Big ships are often electric, granted they don't run on battery's. However,
big ships are really efficient, we use significantly more fuel on trucks than
ships.

EX: 28 feet/gallon sounds bad but * that by 14,770 containers and that's the
equivalent of an 18 wheeler truck getting 78MPG. (Actual 18 wheeler get ~5-7
MPG which is not bad considering the load.)

[http://www.instructables.com/community/Fuel-economy-of-
the-w...](http://www.instructables.com/community/Fuel-economy-of-the-worlds-
longest-in-service-shi/)

~~~
sandworm101
True. There are a great many diesel-electric drives out there (mining trucks).
I'm more concerned with the energy density. The batteries needed to power a
container ship crossing an ocean would be monumental.

Ships are very very fuel efficient, by far the most efficient means of moving
goods over distance. But they are also a large percentage of oil consumers
(20% ?). So even though they are very efficient, they need to be addressed and
their emissions somehow reduced.

------
albertoloddo
Hopefully all the growth won't come from a few players like the combustion
engine automotive industry. Just putting a battery on a car won't help the
environment, we need to rethink mobility as a circular economy. We need to use
existing facilities, we need to fight planned obsolescence with standard
components and modular design to foster a distributed manufacturing ecosystem.
More players, more competition, more innovation, lower prices, less pollution.
[http://www.investmentbank.barclays.com/our-
insights/disrupti...](http://www.investmentbank.barclays.com/our-
insights/disruptive-mobility.html)

------
sremani
The autonomous angle is also the wild-card along with the vehicle ownership
notions. If our norms of vehicle ownership change, we can actually end up with
significantly more BEVs and PHEVs. Remember GM highlighted Lyft when they were
show casing Bolt EV. The S curve is not that far off, even with cheap oil.

~~~
jakozaur
Autonomous and shared vehicles works more in favor of electrical than
combustion engine:

1\. Autocharging is a trivial feature to implement. Charging times and range
matter less.

2\. In Uber/Lyft you don't chose car, but your provider does. Assuming
electrical cars will have better economy there is less legacy/nostalgia
barriers.

~~~
azernik
Additionally, as the proportion of time utilized goes up (as it usually does
for shared vehicles like taxis and Uber/Lyft), the cost of fuel and
maintenance becomes more important relative to the initial price of the car,
making the economics even better for electrics.

------
paulwitte253
I am pro electric cars as I am to have a Tesla one day. Never liked cars until
electric cars came around the block.

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mattedwards984
Can't wait for electric cars to takeover the entire automobile market.

------
basicplus2
the oil not used in petrol cars will be used to make electricity for the
electric cars... so demand for oil will go up..

~~~
azernik
a) according to the IEA as cited by Wikipedia, oil only accounts for 5.5% of
global electricity generation. The proportion is even smaller in most
developed countries listed, where I would expect new car technologies to take
off first.

b) even that electricity is generated more efficiently than energy in a car
engine - power plants generally don't have to make compromises in order to
reduce weight.

~~~
basicplus2
a) part a) is before.. so irrelevant a) part b) is guess.. so no better than
anything I have said

b) incorrect.. as burning a fuel to directly produce mechanical energy that is
used as mechanical energy is more efficient than.. burning fuel to produce
mechanical energy to drive a generator to make electricity, to store it, to
retrieve it, and then drive an electrical motor, to produce mechanical energy
to use.

