In this piece, I talked about how it had taken 15 years for plug-ins to reach 10 million total sales in China, and about how this year, another 10 million would be sold. The S-Curve in action. The chart below, from Our World in Data, shows the percentage of plug-in (EV and PHEV) cars on the road in China, but it only goes to the end of 2023. Let's assume, conservatively, that the percentage rose again by 3% during 2024. This means that plug-in share of the car fleet reached 11% at the end of 2024, and will rise to 22% at the end of 2025. That means that the demand for oil in China to fuel cars will fall by 11% this year. That is not the only end-use of China's local and imported oil, because oil is used in petro-chemical manufacture, for heavy-duty vehicles, and for shipping, domestic and foreign. I don't know how much these are, but at the very least, Chinese oil demand has probably stopped growing. China contributed much of the growth in global oil demand in the previous 20 years.
This is the impact just in China. But plug-ins outside the USA have reached price parity with ICEVs. As they fall in price, their sales will grow faster and faster. For the world as a whole, plug-ins reached 3% of the car fleet at the end of 2023, so perhaps it reached 4 or 4.5% by end 2024. It's an S-curve, and will continue to rise exponentially.
Global oil demand has peaked. Initially, the decline will be small--1% a year for vehicle fuel, which is about 40% of total oil demand -- but it is likely to accelerate every year thereafter.
No comments:
Post a Comment