Oil producers predict a boom in the market of electric vehicles


08/17/2017

Total, one of the world's largest oil producers, believes that almost a third of new car sales will fall on electric cars by the end of the next decade. The groeing number of vehicles running on batteries will lead to a drop in demand for oil-based fuel in the 2030s, said Chief Economist for Energy Total Joel Couse at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance conference (BNEF). According to him, from 15% to 30% of all new machines in the world will be electric in 2030, and after that the demand for fuel will cease to grow and "maybe even fall".



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Forecast of Couse is the highest, at least among the forecasts of major oil companies. It also exceeds BNEF's own forecast, said Head of the transport analysis department at BNEF: "That's a lot. This is certainly the most aggressive forecast among those that we have ever heard from market leaders. "

Other oil companies are reducing their long-term forecasts of oil demand. Chief Executive Officer at Royal Dutch Shell Ben van Beurden said in March that the demand for oil could reach a peak in the late 2020s. The company has established a business unit to find the most profitable "clean" technologies. Electric cars begin to compete with models on the gasoline both for price and performance. According to BNEF, the most expensive part of the electric car is a battery, its price can reach half of the car’s total cost.

The first competitive electric vehicles appeared in the luxury segment. The leader there was the Model S from Tesla, and now this model is the best-selling among the large luxury cars in the USA. However, the price of batteries is reduced by about 20% per year, and automakers spend billions on the development of electrified models. Volkswagen intends to increase the share of electric vehicles in the total volume of its sales to 25% by 2025. Toyota Motor plans to completely stop producing machines that use fossil fuels by 2050.

Now electric cars account for only about 1% of world sales of cars, but automakers are preparing for changes in the market. In 2018, Volkswagen will race with the Audi electric SUV and the first high-speed charging network in the US, which will compete with the Tesla Supercharger charging stations. Electric cars from Jaguar and Volvo are coming along, and by 2020 the market will be covered by an avalanche of dozens of new models, including Mercedes-Benz, VW, General Motors and others.

Michael Liebreich, founder of BNEF, says: "By 2020, more than 120 different models of electric vehicles will be on the market. These are excellent machines. The internal combustion engine will look old-fashioned against their background."

source: bloomberg.com