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

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

#171

Post by Arnt »

badpun wrote: post #137
thelastgallon wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning a gas car will become inconvenient and expensive very soon. The number of gas stations has gone down from 202K to 115K, ~50% down[1]. Gas stations make very little money on gas, most of their income is from people buying cigarette, lotteries, lotto, beer, beverages, and some trinkets in the store. All profits are at the margins. When foot traffic drops, even by 10 - 20%, gas stations are not viable. They can i…

The stations won't "collapse", but merely the number of them will start declining proportionally to the gas vehicles losing popularity (assuming it actually happens). This way, each of the remaining gas stations will have a greater share of the (decreased) foot trafic, thus still maintaining profitability.

That's not how it works in Norway. A lot of stations are so far from the closest neighbour that they have a quasi-monopoly in their area, and "so far" is a surprisingly low number, according to the hearsay I've heard.

The hearsay also says that they close when they need expensive maintenance, not before.

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

#172

Post by Arnt »

nucleardog wrote: post #47
TheRealPomax wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you have to drive 15 minutes there and 15 minutes back, that's not faster than a fast-charge top-up at the fast charge point down the street, though. There's a critical density below which if you have a charge point nearby the nuisance of "going out for gas" and not being able to do anything else during that time isn't worth it compared to plugging in your car, and then just walking away for an hour. Especially if…

I don’t know anyone that often drives somewhere specifically to get gas. As long as you occasionally drive past a gas station during your travels you just stop in for 3-5 minutes and fill the car up. Even if there isn’t one directly on your route, we’re talking a long ways off I think that you need to travel 15 or minutes from every point of your trip to each a gas station. Like, we've reached such a low density that…

What you're descriving is a lot of Norway. Low density, and employees cost a lot per hour.

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

#173

Post by prepend »

lamontcg wrote: post #145
prepend wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just pointing out that people spending 15-20 mins at stations is not unrealistic. This is super unrealistic due to volume. I filled my car at Costco this morning. I spent about 3 minutes pumping 10 gallons. At the same time, 25 other cars filled up at the 25 pumps. And there was a line backed up. To change refuel times from 3-5 minutes to 15-20 (rather optimistic based on my supercharging experience) won’t work unl…

I can't remember the last time I had to wait in line for gas that wasn't at Costco. Costco is a pretty extreme outlier. But agreed that charging should shift to the home, the problem there is chargers for on-street parking though for people who don't have driveways/garages (of course this might eventually get solved by fully automated vehicles and lowering ownership of vehicles, but that's still vaporware right now w…

It’s not the waiting that’s the important part. It’s that lots of people want to get gas and they can’t all wait 20-30 minutes to recharge.

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

#174

Post by lightbritefight »

prepend wrote: post #141
throw_pm23 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good observations (and relevant username). Just pointing out that people spending 15-20 mins at stations is not unrealistic. At least near motorways, gas stations already position themselves as a place where you can do your regular rest during a long drive, with diners, cafes, children's playgrounds, etc., some drivers even catch a quick nap in the parking lot -- this is how it looks in Europe at least.

> Just pointing out that people spending 15-20 mins at stations is not unrealistic. This is super unrealistic due to volume. I filled my car at Costco this morning. I spent about 3 minutes pumping 10 gallons. At the same time, 25 other cars filled up at the 25 pumps. And there was a line backed up. To change refuel times from 3-5 minutes to 15-20 (rather optimistic based on my supercharging experience) won’t work unl…

Now imagine if instead of those 25 pumps, each parking spot in the regular costco parking lot had a charging station. Suddenly 25 min isn't a big deal, and you "fuel" just as many, if not more cars in the same time frame as the mega large gas station, which itself could be even more charging spots.

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

#175

Post by lightbritefight »

mulmen wrote: post #161
fragmede wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not too hard to imagine parking meters having charging ports.

Ports is right. This is only viable if the cars bring the cable. Seattle tried installing chargers at public street parking spots and the cables were stolen.

There are endless street level, public EV chargers in Seattle with cables.

Some random chargers being vandalized isn't really indicative of anything.

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

#176

Post by kieranmaine »

zotbar1234 wrote: post #43

[dead]

The article is based on data from https://robbieandrew.github.io/EV/.

You make fair points on how other variables can influence fuel consumption. However, if you look at the "Distance travelled" section there's a clear trend over the last 7-8 years of EV miles displacing ICE miles travelled. With EVs approaching 90% of sales this trend will continue, regardless of fluctuations in the variables you mention.

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

#177

Post by x86x87 »

speedgoose wrote: post #72
x86x87 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Producing the vehicle itself leads to pollution. The question is: is it better to buy a new vehicle (and polute a nonsignificant ammont) or is the polution of my current vehicle going to be less for its remaining life?

In my opinion, unless you destroy the new EV in its early life and the battery cannot be reused or recycled for some reasons, it's likely much better to sell your ICE now so it replaces a more polluting car. You could also compare the pollution per km in the remaining lifetime of your current car, and the pollution per km in the remaining lifetime of a new EV. Your local electricity grid may improve over the years, b…

I think that's directionality how people think but is this based in reality or is this mostly wishful thinking triggere by the "EVs are good" propaganda?

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

#178

Post by roenxi »

joe__f wrote: post #30
mytailorisrich wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that what the poster is getting at is that Norway's population is small and very wealthy, and it is concentrated around Oslo/Bergen/Trondheim so that it's risky to generalise based on what's happening there because, on global scale, it's a bit like a large-ish wealthy city (there are 1 million more people in Hongkong than in Norway). I don't think he meant that it wasn't an actual country. It obviously is.…

I got the impression they are a firm believer in the spherical cow model

mytailorisrich's reading is much more accurate than yours then. He's picking up what I'm putting down.

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

#179

Post by roenxi »

travisgriggs wrote: post #20
roenxi wrote: post #2

Norway is more of a city than a country, and a rather wealthy one that is difficult to draw conclusions from when it comes to consumer spending patterns. I'd brush this off as not that interesting. However, if we're looking for oil death spirals in Norway, I recommend: https://crudeoilpeak.info/global-peak/norway-peak-oil

Not Norwegian, but lived there for 2 years, in multiple places from Narvik to Stavanager to Oslo to Trondheim. Population wise, Norway slots between Minnesota and South Carolina and is ~7.5x the mighty "city" of Alaska. It has a mainland latitude sweep of nearly 24 degrees, California covers 16 degrees of latitude. It's coastline is a mind boggling 51,748 miles. I can't find a good stat on total road network size, bu…

> Population wise, Norway slots between Minnesota and South Carolina and is ~7.5x the mighty "city" of Alaska. It has a mainland latitude sweep of nearly 24 degrees, California covers 16 degrees of latitude

And yet the first 4 things you choose to compare Norway to are, conspicuously, not countries. If we want to compare Norway to a country, by wealth and population it makes about as much sense to talk about Liechtenstein and Luxembourg than Saudi Arabia, Australia or Canada (other resource rich countries, in case you're wondering). Qatar too, which is ... basically a big city.

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

#180

Post by pfdietz »

Forbo wrote: post #162
bigtex wrote: post #110

Have they found a replacement for plastic yet?

A quick search tells me that plastics account for around 4-5% of oil production, so I don't think this is going to be the safety net for the industry that it might look like at first.

And a great deal of plastic comes from natural gas, not oil.
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