Comment by jillesvangurp
3 days ago
You'll be able to buy ICE vehicles. But you won't want to and the people that could sell you one will be dealing with the economic effects of most of their customer base evaporating. Mostly poorly probably. Think factory closures, reduced market shares, etc.
But ten years sounds about right for the following things to happen:
- new EVs will be cheaper to buy than ICE vehicles. Right now they are cheaper to own. But once prices drop low enough, few people will want to spend more on a lesser vehicle.
- EV production will ramp up to eclipse ICE vehicle production by the end of this decade. More EVs will be produced than ICE vehicles.
- Commercial fleets will be largely electrical for the simple reason it's already cheaper and only getting cheaper. Anger doesn't factor into this. Businesses that don't adapt will go out of business.
- Private owners will follow but a bit slower. Lots of private owners have older vehicles and don't actually drive that much. So, economic drivers are there but not that important for them.
- For the same reason, roads are actually dominated by commercial traffic. Most miles driven will be electric. Most of the intensively used vehicles will be electric. That will become really visible on the roads. It's already very visible in some places.
- That same effect will also impact revenue from petrol/diesel sales. That's already starting to happen as well. This will impact pricing and availability. Which feeds into decision making.
> You'll be able to buy ICE vehicles.
Depends on the country. I think 2035 is a realistic date for an ICE ban for personal vehicles, and I'm willing to bet that several countries will have implemented a ban by then. Norway targets 2025. Netherlands is looking at 2030.
Most other countries are saying 2040, but if EVs become cheap and good enough by 2030 it's not unthinkable that some of them will move up the timeline. Keep in mind that by 2035 we will probably feel the consequences of climate change even more severely. Perhaps we will see a year with practically no polar ice cap in summer. And the 2040 goal may anyway make it so it's practically impossible to buy an ICE personal car by 2035 because what auto-maker or dealership will want to focus at all on a rapidly shrinking market that they know will be completely gone in 5 years? A few sports car and recreational vehicles, maybe? But a car you want to daily drive, probably not.
> That same effect will also impact revenue from petrol/diesel sales. That's already starting to happen as well.
Yeah, this is a very good point that I don't think many are considering. In the area in Norway with highest EV share the sale of gasoline started falling 30% every year. I've seen gas stations change all but 1-2 pumps to charging stations recently.
That's why I think the last few years of this transition may see larger fall in sale of ICE vehicles than you'd expect from a gradual transition, as people who would otherwise have bought a new ICE vehicle may try harder to hold on to their old one.. because why buy a brand new car that's going to be extremely inconvenient to fuel in a few years? Even if EV prices go up to due spike in demand caused by this panic, people may still hesitate to buy ICE.
By the tail end of this, people may be reading news from Norway and Netherlands that you can't easily find gas stations anymore.. We've got lots of German tourists coming by car in Norway. That could make Germans think even if they don't have their own ban.
All that said, this all depends on whether we can make enough batteries. That's a huge challenge. There are many multi GWh factories being constructed now. But still.. there could be limitations on say lithium mining. So perhaps we need Sodium-Ion to go mainstream for the really low cost vehicles.