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How big oil will die

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Re: How big oil will die

#71

Post by russdill »

function_seven wrote: post #8
saagarjha wrote: post #4

I can see this playing out, but not as quickly as the author suggests. Cameras and cellphones last a couple years at the most, and are much easier to replace, than a car is. Sure, everyone wants a self driving car, but not everyone can switch just like that.

The argument that counters this is that hailed rides will be cheaper than driving what you already have. You don't need to make a new purchase to switch. Even if you have a recent model sitting in the driveway, you may choose to save money by hailing a car rather than driving your own. I don't know if it'll play out like that, but the article is pretty convincing.

I don't think hailed rides can replace a daily commuter as easily as the author suggests. If everyone were to replace their daily driver by hailing a self driving EV, there would be massive surge pricing as most people would be commuting around the same time.

Re: How big oil will die

#72

Post by esterly »

hyperbovine wrote: post #52
alliao wrote: post #46

And this is how car manufacturers going to make up the revenue loss of the new much more reliable electric drive train. AI + Autonomous driving. Both of these requires sensors, and silicon. Both hates abuse from vibration and heat/cold cycle, in short, they will fail. So instead of paying for things that would break in the old car, why not pay for things that only exists in the new car. It's not hard...

Cars have been shipping with sensors and computers since the 80s. When was the last time you heard of somebody's ECU failing? What's that, you've never heard of an ECU before? :-)

Agreed. The sensors which fail commonly fail [1] on high milage ICE cars are in the hot places, exhaust and coolant. Battery cooling and electric motors run at a much lower temperature around 40C [2].

1. https://www.gsfcarparts.com/blog/when-car-sensors-go-bad-sym... 2. https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/questions-about-batt...

Re: How big oil will die

#73

Post by Gibbon1 »

emmanuelindex wrote: post #50

Why self driving cars should only be electric vehicules? And if the price of oil is going down due to electric vehicules it will make people even more happier to use their already amortized vehicules. And don't forget that a large part of electricity comes from oil in the US.

The flip side is if if and when electric cars become cheap enough it's possible that they will beat ICE on a cost per mile basis _even if gasoline were free_.

Justification: For a car that gets 30MPG the fuel cost per mile is only 6-7 cents per mile. Total cost per mile is around 50 cents per mile. So only 10-20% of the cost is fuel.

Re: How big oil will die

#74

Post by andy_ppp »

leereeves wrote: post #59
pilom wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree wholeheartedly with you and my next vehicle will be a plug in hybrid. That said, that isn't what the author is saying. He's saying that all private cars will go away because it will be so much cheaper to just call a self driving electric and I don't see it happening because people will never call a self driving car to the trailhead of a 14'er. It is just so much more convenient to have your own (PHEV).

> people will never call a self driving car to the trailhead of a 14'er. As a long distance backpacker I'd love to be able to get a ride to and from the trail at a reasonable price. Of course, we'd also need better cell coverage.

Almost everywhere seems to have better cell coverage than the worlds richest country. Maybe electric Uber will mean this needs to be fixed.

Re: How big oil will die

#75

Post by danans »

emmanuelindex wrote: post #50

Why self driving cars should only be electric vehicules? And if the price of oil is going down due to electric vehicules it will make people even more happier to use their already amortized vehicules. And don't forget that a large part of electricity comes from oil in the US.

> And don't forget that a large part of electricity comes from oil in the US.

Unless you live in Hawaii this is false.

Coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar are collectively and individually larger contributors than oil.

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

Re: How big oil will die

#77

Post by ramzyo »

diafygi wrote: post #38
forgotmysn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can you link to or provide a little more info on the "boom-bust cycle that early fossil went through"?

Here's a recent example with the shale boom-bust: http://www.energytrendsinsider.com/2015/11/04/boom-to-bust-5... This is extremely typical in the history of energy (wood, coal, oil, solar, nuclear, wind, and on and on) because of the speed at which things move. First, you come up with a new innovation, pump capital into building tons of it (the boom). Then, someone else comes up with an innovation, which busts you.…

>> It's fundamentally impossible to defend an advantage/monopoly long term in energy (except with governments, e.g. utilities)

I'd argue the causal factors here are more attributable to a combination of natural forces in quasi-free market economies (e.g. competition) and antitrust laws than the specific economics of the energy industry.

Re: How big oil will die

#78

Post by maxsilver »

briantakita wrote: post #63
maxsilver wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars can have ICE's strapped onto them, and it works really well. The Chevy Volt, for instance, is perfectly designed to handle the situation you described. It gives you 52ish miles of all electric range, so you can commute and grab groceries and do all of your normal driving on pure electricity. And for various road trips, it still gets 40-ish MPG for hundreds of miles without any electricity needed. It als…

> It also needs zero fancy charging infrastructure. Have a regular US household power outlet anywhere in your garage or home exterior? Then you have everything you need to charge it up every night. There will be significant additional load on the Electric grid. This will require the electric grid to be overhauled around the country. Couple this with "smart grid" mandates & you have yet another channel for government…

> There will be significant additional load on the Electric grid. This will require the electric grid to be overhauled around the country.

Two electric cars in a household, both charging simultaneously, uses less electricity combined than just one standard clothes dryer or one central air conditioner -- the kind of appliances everyone already has in their home and runs regularly.

It's not nothing of course. And some parts of the grid will need capacity improvements. But we're only talking about 900 to 1400 watts per car here, and most of that only happening at night when there's lots of spare capacity already. I don't see any factual reasons this would crush the power grid -- cars simply don't use enough electricity to cause a major problem.

Re: How big oil will die

#79

Post by saagarjha »

khn1 wrote: post #67

There is a major blind spot that the author fails to address: All vehicles (ICE or EV) have a heavy dependence on petroleum products such as plastics, lubricants, and synthetic rubber. While I believe that EV's are the future, I do not think their success implies the fall of Big Oil.

Those are minor uses, though.

Re: How big oil will die

#80

Post by diafygi »

khn1 wrote: post #67

There is a major blind spot that the author fails to address: All vehicles (ICE or EV) have a heavy dependence on petroleum products such as plastics, lubricants, and synthetic rubber. While I believe that EV's are the future, I do not think their success implies the fall of Big Oil.

A whopping 5% of oil isn't burned[1]. Take away burning oil, and your industry is 20x smaller. Not so big anymore.

[1]: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm/index.cfm?page...

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