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All Fossil-Fuel Vehicles Will Vanish In 8 Years, Says Stanford Study (financialpost.com)
Stanford University economist Tony Seba forecasts in his new report that petrol or diesel cars, buses, or trucks will no longer be sold anywhere in the world within the next eight years. As a result, the transportation market will transition and switch entirely to electrification, "leading to a collapse of oil prices and the demise of the petroleum industry as we have known it for a century," reports Financial Post. From the report: Seba's premise is that people will stop driving altogether. They will switch en masse to self-drive electric vehicles (EVs) that are ten times cheaper to run than fossil-based cars, with a near-zero marginal cost of fuel and an expected lifespan of 1 million miles. Only nostalgics will cling to the old habit of car ownership. The rest will adapt to vehicles on demand. It will become harder to find a petrol station, spares, or anybody to fix the 2,000 moving parts that bedevil the internal combustion engine. Dealers will disappear by 2024. Cities will ban human drivers once the data confirms how dangerous they can be behind a wheel. This will spread to suburbs, and then beyond. There will be a "mass stranding of existing vehicles." The value of second-hard cars will plunge. You will have to pay to dispose of your old vehicle. It is a twin "death spiral" for big oil and big autos, with ugly implications for some big companies on the London Stock Exchange unless they adapt in time. The long-term price of crude will fall to $25 a barrel. Most forms of shale and deep-water drilling will no longer be viable. Assets will be stranded. Scotland will forfeit any North Sea bonanza. Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Venezuela will be in trouble.
Stanford University economist Tony Seba forecasts in his new report that petrol or diesel cars, buses, or trucks will no longer be sold anywhere in the world within the next eight years.
Itâ(TM)s a stretch to say this for passenger autos, and maybe even busses that already run on alternative fuels. I donâ(TM)t see this in 8 to 10 years for heavy equipment and trucks. As well, there are many more things than cars, buses, trucks, planes, and heavy equipment that run on fossil fuels, oil producers will have business for a long time to come.
They will switch en masse to self-drive electric vehicles (EVs) that are ten times cheaper to run than fossil-based cars, with a near-zero marginal cost of fuel and an expected lifespan of 1 million miles. Only nostalgics will cling to the old habit of car ownership. The rest will adapt to vehicles on demand. It will become harder to find a petrol station, spares, or anybody to fix the 2,000 moving parts that bedevil the internal combustion engine. Dealers will disappear by 2024. Cities will ban human drivers once the data confirms how dangerous they can be behind a wheel. This will spread to suburbs, and then beyond. There will be a "mass stranding of existing vehicles.
This is going to happen within 8 years? It will still be a dream in 8 years, closer, but still a dream⦠Pie in the sky from egg-headed Chardonnay swilling Stanford quiche eaters.
Also from the actual article:
The long-term price of crude will fall to US$25 a barrel.
No.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
if /. still had the kind of editors that once made it great, it would not be posting such an article uncritically.
>"Cities will ban human drivers once the data confirms how dangerous they can be behind a wheel. This will spread to suburbs, and then beyond"
And those of us who ENJOY driving, especially motorcycles (which can likely never be self-driving) are royally screwed. But hey, I suppose a super-safe and boring life is so much more meaningful than a a free and enjoyable one with some risk....
Oh, make sure to ban bicycles and pedestrians too. Then start banning skateboards, roller skates/blades, horseback riding, skydiving, mounting climbing, target shooting, football, skiing, dogs, game consoles, whatever. Life is just not safe, you know.
Owning a car has nothing to do with a place that 40 minutes outside of a city by car. You just rent one or use one of the soon-to-be-fleets of autonomous cars (or take a bus or a train). It sounds like you have a hard time grasping the freedom of not being tied down by the financial responsibility of owning your own car.
You haven't considered what happens when you have kids where I live it is illegal now to let them walk to school unescorted under a certain age and they need to be in car seats until 7 years of age. lets see how many autonomous vehicles you will need for school drop off and pick up. with the appropriate child restraint seats. or the worker is he going to unload his vehicle every time he gets home just so it could do its next pick up. Only 2 examples I could keep going. This guy needs to get out of his ivory tower and see how people actually live
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
Actually, where I live, the electric vehicles are all coal-fired.
OK you are close to your job now. But your partner has had to move 40 minutes further away from theirs. How do they get to work and home again? But you'll be OK because you're the only person in the world, right?