Comment by bruce511
15 days ago
Both ICE and EV cars require a support infrastructure. As sales trends change, so the emphasis on support infrastructure changes, and that accelerates the trend.
For example EVs depend on charging, so we're seeing more public charge points, as well as more home chargers, work chargers and so on.
ICE depends on gas stations (which is the tip of the gasoline distribution industry.) It also depends on ICE mechanics. As demand for those services drop off, so they'll become harder to find. (To be clear, that's not happening soon, there are a LOT of ICE cars out there...)
But 50 years from now most of that ICE infrastructure will have disappeared.
> But 50 years from now most of that ICE infrastructure will have disappeared.
I'm guessing it will be already in 20-30 years from now. In 5-10 years from now, no-one will buy an ICE vehicle. Add to those 10 years a lifetime of 10-20 years for the last sold ICE vehicle and you get 20-30 years. So 20-30 years from today there will not be many ICE cars rolling on the streets and most gas stations and other needed infrastructure will be gone as it is not economical to stay in business.
The average car is 12 years old (us, but other countries are similar). so gas stations are likely still common in 20 years. in 10 years new gas stations will be built a lot less often, but nobody will close an existing one that they wouldn't close anyway.
If GP's prediction that no one is buying ICE cars 5-10 years from now, and the average car is 12 years old, by 20 years from now we're down to less than half the current ICE fleet by natural replacement.
But the replacement isn't random. Rather people who drive the most all already replaced their vehicles to minimize costs. Gas stations would, under just natural replacement, be down well below 50% of their former sales.
And that makes it worse. Gas is less conveniently available, and more expensive. Replacement isn't just targeted towards people who drive a lot, but it's well above replacement.
I'd be surprised if there was 10 years between the last mass marketed gas cars being sold and the entire mass market fleet of cars no longer using gas. The infrastructure becomes unprofitable and ceases to exist in a negative feedback loop.
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I think a lot of the smaller gas stations will slowly die off and we'll see continued growth of those kinds of fuel stations known for their food adopt EV charging as well and grow to offer food + energy whether that be gas or electric.
Buc-ees these days has tons of rows of EV charging, often both Tesla and Mercedes brands. I imagine we'll see a similar thing with other brands.
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I mentionedf a lifetime of 10-20 years for a car. So 20 lifetime and 10 years from now is when the last ICE car is sold that makes 30 years from now there will be basically no ICE cars circulating.
Half the US takes pride in pollution though, and despise efforts to reduce it, so that's not gonna be the case everywhere.
In the US, money talks. I believe EV cars will be much cheaper to produce than ICE cars in 10 years from now. They will also have lower maintenance costs, better performance and lower energy costs. So there will be no reason to buy an ICE car over an EV in 10 years from now.
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