Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

electrek.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 217 posts

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

#201

Post by ZeroGravitas »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #120

The headline doesn't follow from the actual data (par for the course with electrek I guess). Here is a graph from the source used in TFA. Now look at the sum of gasoline, diesel and biofuels, and tell me that's "cratering". https://robbieandrew.github.io/EV/img/NORenergy_road.png

I think it's implied by the headline that biofuels (despite being literally "motor fuels") are in fact part of the problem for those selling "oil".

EVs, plug-in hybrids and high efficiency non-plugin hybrids all combine with biofuels to dent the market demand.

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

#202

Post by belltaco »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #197
bryanlarsen wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a case study on what could happen if EV's become cheaper than gasoline vehicles. It doesn't really matter if the shift happens due to subsidies or market forces.

Basically this study has figured out that if you subsidize Ferraris, people are going to ride in Ferraris. But the moment you will stop subsidizing them people will return back to normal cars. Absolute majority of countries does not have a capital of Norway to subsidize on such a large scale.

Take a look at what's happening in the Chinese car market. Electric cars are getting cheaper, and EVs are selling despite subsidies expiring or being lowered.

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

#203

Post by bryanlarsen »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #197
bryanlarsen wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a case study on what could happen if EV's become cheaper than gasoline vehicles. It doesn't really matter if the shift happens due to subsidies or market forces.

Basically this study has figured out that if you subsidize Ferraris, people are going to ride in Ferraris. But the moment you will stop subsidizing them people will return back to normal cars. Absolute majority of countries does not have a capital of Norway to subsidize on such a large scale.

No they wouldn't. Ferraris are impractical, expensive to fuel, unreliable, can't be used on poor roads, hard to get into, have no luggage space, only hold two people, et cetera. Their main appeal is that they signal status. And if they were cheap, they don't do that.

EVs had similar drawbacks: range anxiety, et cetera. It was not a given that people would buy them even if they were cheaper.

Now we know they will, and get a glimpse of society in a world where EV's are cheaper than gasoline cars.

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

#205

Post by badpun »

Arnt wrote: post #171
badpun wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In remote areas with low population density, the stations are like you say quasi-monopolies, so they can just raise the prices if the foot traffic declines. The closures caused by need for expensive maintenance can be a problem, though.

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

#206

Post by jncfhnb »

ben_w wrote: post #199
jncfhnb wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is not the definition implied by the original quote so great. We agree.

What are you even talking about? This is literally called "boots theory" and is explicitly giving boots as an example. That's what "framing in terms of" means .

If you read the discussion, the quote responded to included the claim

> The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Which is a dumb claim. As you’ll note, I said that the general effect was true but this claim was wrong.

You appear to be arguing something tangential

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

#207

Post by TheRealPomax »

zdragnar wrote: post #164
TheRealPomax wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in those cases plugging in your EV amounts to no net gain or loss, but there absolutely are people who already have to make a dedicated trip to the gas station because their own town where they do their shopping simply doesn't have one.

Sure, but this conversation was about an urban area being converted from industrial to residential. The people who will be living there with ICEs will certainly be driving them past gas stations elsewhere in the city.

No, we're not. We're talking about Norway as a whole, a country where for the vast majority of people, "urban centers" are few and far between. With an anecdote that highlights that even in urban setting there are areas where it's apparently easier to drive an EV than ICE.

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

#208

Post by TheLoafOfBread »

belltaco wrote: post #202
TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically this study has figured out that if you subsidize Ferraris, people are going to ride in Ferraris. But the moment you will stop subsidizing them people will return back to normal cars. Absolute majority of countries does not have a capital of Norway to subsidize on such a large scale.

Take a look at what's happening in the Chinese car market. Electric cars are getting cheaper, and EVs are selling despite subsidies expiring or being lowered.

That's subsidized electricity in China. If you would be selling liter of gas for 10cents, people would be driving car even between single blocks.

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

#209

Post by mulmen »

lightbritefight wrote: post #175
mulmen wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Huh, I can’t think of a single one. All the chargers I know about are in parking garages.

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

#210

Post by joe__f »

roenxi wrote: post #178
joe__f wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, I'm glad somebody else was able to understand what you meant and clarify it for you. I'd say it's not surprising that people misunderstand you if you don't put much detail in your posts
Post reply on HN