Electric cars and peak fuel car sales

Recently, there are more and more discussions about electric vehicles and their impact on our lives, on other industries and on their impact on oil consumption. It is often claimed that the world production of traditional fuel cars will grow for several more decades. However, recently the Bloomberg NEF published a report stating that the production of traditional cars (for simplicity, we will call them oil cars) has already reached its peak and will not grow in the future due to increased sales of electric vehicles. The peak of oil consumption by motor vehicles, which inevitably follows the peak of sales of oil vehicles, makes this issue especially acute. In more detail with dates of these events we will try to understand the article.




Sales of electric cars in this decade grew very rapidly, and it became obvious that such growth someday would cause a drop in sales of oil vehicles. But when exactly humanity will begin to refuse cars with ICE no one knew. Oilmen hoped that sales of oil vehicles will grow for several decades. The more unexpected was the statement by Bloomberg NEF, published in a review of the market for electric vehicles in 2019 that sales of oil vehicles began to fall after more than 100 years of growth.
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Bloomberg NEF does not specify in which year the peak of sales occurred. But according to the consulting company LMC Automotive, in 2018, 94 million new passenger and light commercial (LCV) cars were sold worldwide, which is 0.5% less than 2017. In 2019, the fall continued on the world's largest automobile market, the Chinese. Therefore, it seems that 2017 will be a record year.

Now the most important thing: after the peak of sales of oil vehicles, the peak of the world car fleet and the peak of oil consumption by this fleet should follow. Based on the average service life of a car for about 12 years, it can be assumed that the global fleet of oil vehicles will be maximum 6 years after 2017. That is, the peak of oil consumption by motor vehicles can occur in 2023 (the same date is called the analysts of the London Research Center Carbon Tracker Initiative and the Norwegian risk management company DNV GL)
Let's see what year predicts bloomberg NEF.



Bloomberg NEF predicts that the peak in demand for oil from passenger transport will come in 2028, and from commercial transport in 2035. This forecast is very conservative since the difference in the peak of the sales of oil vehicles and the peak of oil consumption is not 6, but 13 years.

findings

1. The peak of oil consumption by motor vehicles will come within 12-15 years after the peak of sales of oil vehicles.
2. Perhaps humanity can not predict in advance the peak of oil consumption, as it could not predict the peak of sales of oil vehicles due to extremely conservative forecasts.

PS Independent studies show that the peak in oil consumption by motor transport will come in 2023. The same date is confirmed by mathematical calculations. Oil companies and Bloomberg NEF claim that the peak of oil consumption by motor vehicles will happen no earlier than 2030. Let everyone make for themselves the conclusions about the independence and objectivity of Bloomberg NEF forecasts.
PPS The Central Bank of the Russian Federation believes that the peak of demand for oil from motor transport will be in the mid-2020s, which coincides with the opinion of organizations independent of oil industry.