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Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

electrek.co

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Re: Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

#81

Post by ForHackernews »

goles wrote: post #46
macNchz wrote: post #10

A couple of comments on the article point out that if gas stations start closing due to reduced demand, it will accelerate the effect by making it more cumbersome to own a gas car. Recently, some of the industrial area near my apartment in NYC was rezoned for housing, and nearly all of the local gas stations were torn down (not because of low demand but because a 15 story building would be more profitable). The resul…

Perhaps not applicable to NYC, but isnt it kind of troubling that people who cant afford a luxury vehicle (55-100k) could be put in a position where they have to spend more money (gas) to go fill up out of their way, taxed for being poor, or shut up and take public transit (if it even exists where they live)? Surely no one driving an EV ever got to their position to buy one driving an ICE. Edit: happy this comment in…

This is a lazy line of thinking that argues we should always maintain the status quo, no matter how lousy, if the transition costs money: won't somebody think of the poor!

"If we outlaw child labor, isn't it kind of troubling that families who particularly rely on their 8-year old's wages will be the ones losing the most..."

The fact of the matter is that EVs have gotten cheaper, they are getting cheaper, and there are government subsidies to help people buy them. Maybe those subsidies could be even larger, or better targeted, or means-tested? Or, yes, in fact we could improve public transit!

Anyway, I'd give this argument more credence if the same partisans for sticking with fossil fuels had demonstrated any kind of consistent care for the world's poor in any other context, but I haven't seen that.

Re: Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

#83

Post by arwhatever »

I wonder if electric cars were to approach the maximum range that most people would ever want to drive in a day, about double the stated range of the current longer-ranged cars, if that might trigger a rather profound and sudden tipping point.

Who cares how quickly they charge if you’re stopping to sleep for the night anyway?

Re: Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

#84

Post by guidoism »

boringg wrote: post #57
goles wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps not applicable to NYC, but isnt it kind of troubling that people who cant afford a luxury vehicle (55-100k) could be put in a position where they have to spend more money (gas) to go fill up out of their way, taxed for being poor, or shut up and take public transit (if it even exists where they live)? Surely no one driving an EV ever got to their position to buy one driving an ICE. Edit: happy this comment in…

China has EVs that aren't luxury and I'm pretty sure Europe does as well if I am reading your comment correct you are trying to insinuate that EVs are luxury. If not your comment needs some clarity.

ICE are to EV as HDs are to SSDs. My intuition is that because there’s a floor to the cost of HDs (I think at some point it was around $35) and no practical floor to SSDs, there might be a similar story with cars. I know it’s really a bad analogy.

Cars still need brakes (for now) and tires and lots of other stuff, but there’s a huge amount of infrastructure built in a car to help it blow up million year old leaves. EVs are simpler so should be able to be made cheaper (eventually).

Maybe that means that what we expect from a car changes. If it costs you $10,000 to do all the stuff for a gasoline engine then a $1,000 AC isn’t a huge addition and there are maybe a bunch of other thousand dollar decisions that get added to make the cars cost what they cost.

Makes me think of stuff that used to be luxury items that came in expensive packaging and came with expensive accessories and now the actual item is so cheap the old packaging costs more than the actual item.

Re: Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

#85

Post by dromtrund »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #9
exar0815 wrote: post #6

Well, in the larger metropolitan regions (Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim), where probably 2/3 of Norwegians live, you see a majority of electrics or at least hybrids. When you get further North, that diminishes. From Lofoten to Tromsø, you see more and more petrol or diesel. And heavier vehicles. The automotive culture there starkly reminded me of Iceland.

It's not so much the automotive culture, but backbreaking taxes on ICE vehicles, and basically no alternatives if you live in rural areas and have to drive long distances. Maybe someone from norway can calculate/check how much a mid-range petrol/diesel car (eg. VW golf, renault megane,...) costs there after all the taxes, and compare to an electric one, but it's a LOT more than in eg. germany.

A VW Golf starts at 35800€, and a VW ID.3 starts at 32800€, taxes included. Overall, electric cars are a bit cheaper than their counterparts, but not a lot. However, today, petrol is 2.15€/l and electricity is 0.013€/kWh. That's 11.20€/100km versus 0.185€/100km for the ID.3, literally two orders of magnitude cheaper. Everyone charges at home, and there's also a 40% discount in toll roads, which saves me about 8€ per day I'm commuting.

With the 3k€ lower price, a range of 430km, and fast charging stations every 30km along the major highways, there's just no reason to pick the Golf.

We still have a PHEV in addition to our electric car, but there's no reason to. If we're going on a 500km road trip, we'll take the electric BMW i4, no question.

Re: Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

#86

Post by candiddevmike »

jncfhnb wrote: post #75
ben_w wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"""The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.""" - https://en.wikipedia.org/…

This effect is true but the thesis is dumb. The rich are rich because of the compounding effects of wealth. Not that small fraction spent on durable goods.

I think the OP demonstrates the compounding effects of wealth, just not in a direct money-creates-money way.

Re: Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

#87

Post by speedgoose »

jgilias wrote: post #56
nordsieck wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a Washington State resident, my biggest primary holdback with going all electric is the range reduction that occurs in winter months due to cold. From what I can tell, a substantial mitigating factor is if you can garage your vehicle.

Keeping it in the garage, or just somewhere you can plug it in overnight helps somewhat because it gets heated up before your drive using the grid electricity. The consumption is still higher though. Mine goes from 14 kWh/100km when it’s 20 Celsius to 24 kWh/100km when it’s -10 Celsius. Highway consumption changes less dramatically as going faster you spend a larger share of the energy on moving as opposed to heating…

In addition to the mandatory heat-pump, and starting a trip with a warm car and a warm battery, the better EVs also extract heat from the battery to heat-up the cabin. Long trips with one or two short fast charging stop aren't so much worse than summer. In both cases the car cools down the battery after a charging stop (the battery heats up a lot when fast charging). In winter it moves the heat inside the car, and outside the car during summer (in addition to running AC).

Re: Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

#88

Post by goles »

corbet wrote: post #60
goles wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps not applicable to NYC, but isnt it kind of troubling that people who cant afford a luxury vehicle (55-100k) could be put in a position where they have to spend more money (gas) to go fill up out of their way, taxed for being poor, or shut up and take public transit (if it even exists where they live)? Surely no one driving an EV ever got to their position to buy one driving an ICE. Edit: happy this comment in…

Not in New York... But our Bolt, while not the cheapest car ever, certainly doesn't match your description here. One doesn't have to buy a Tesla to get an EV.

Would you be willing to share what the car has cost in total (maint, elec, insur, ect) over the years? Genuinely curious.

Re: Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

#89

Post by Scoundreller »

jgilias wrote: post #56
nordsieck wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a Washington State resident, my biggest primary holdback with going all electric is the range reduction that occurs in winter months due to cold. From what I can tell, a substantial mitigating factor is if you can garage your vehicle.

Keeping it in the garage, or just somewhere you can plug it in overnight helps somewhat because it gets heated up before your drive using the grid electricity. The consumption is still higher though. Mine goes from 14 kWh/100km when it’s 20 Celsius to 24 kWh/100km when it’s -10 Celsius. Highway consumption changes less dramatically as going faster you spend a larger share of the energy on moving as opposed to heating…

Just do what electric buses in cold climates do: have a diesel/kerosene auxiliary heater.

Nice part is that you (usually) don’t have to pay road tax on it.

Re: Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

#90

Post by DoingIsLearning »

arwhatever wrote: post #83

I wonder if electric cars were to approach the maximum range that most people would ever want to drive in a day, about double the stated range of the current longer-ranged cars, if that might trigger a rather profound and sudden tipping point. Who cares how quickly they charge if you’re stopping to sleep for the night anyway?

You are looking at it from an American viewpoint.

If you are in US, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, you might reasonably need to cover huge distances in a day.

However there are a _lot_ of people in countries across Europe, Indian sub-continent, SE Asia for whom the current EV range is actually enough.

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