UK to ban gas and diesel cars by 2040
The UK will ban the sale of fresh petrol and diesel cars and vans by two thousand forty to reduce pollution and improve public health, its government is announcing Wednesday. The UK joins a growing list of countries — including India, France, and Norway — with similar plans to phase out fossil fuel-burning cars.
Peak oil request is now in glance thanks to plummeting prices for electrified batteries. “Electric cars will outsell fossil fuel-powered vehicles within two decades as battery prices plunge,” Bloomberg Fresh Energy Finance (BNEF) forecasts, “turning the global auto industry upside down and signaling economic turmoil for oil-exporting countries.”
Following the lead set by France, by two thousand forty the UK will only permit the sale of cars that have zero tailpipe emissions, meaning the ban extends to hybrid vehicles. The UK environment department explained its decision was rooted in concern for public health: “poor air quality is the fattest environmental risk to public health in the UK and this government is determined to take strong activity in the shortest time possible.”
Electrical car revolution may drive oil ‘investor death spiral’
The multi-trillion-dollar ‘big crash’ could embark as soon as 2023, Bloomberg warns.
A stunning seventy three percent drop in lithium-ion battery prices since two thousand ten have enabled these future bans. BNEF projects this trend will proceed for at least two decades, with electrical vehicles (EVs) becoming as cheap as gasoline cars by 2025, but then quickly becoming cheaper.
This price spin will lead to a sales spin, with EV sales surpassing those of petrol-powered cars in the 2030s, according to BNEF.
Given that EVs will soon be cheaper to buy than petrol cars — and that EVs are much cheaper to maintain and fuel — some countries are on a quicker timetable than the UK.
India has vowed to sell only electrified vehicles by 2030. Their energy minister expects that after a few years of subsidies, “the cost of electrical vehicles will commence paying for themselves.” India is also motivated by its desire to reduce not only CO2 emissions but all forms air pollution, which one investigate shows kills more than one million Indians a year.
Norway, where EVs already have a record thirty seven percent share of the car market, has an even more aggressive timetable. Norway’s transportation minister says it is “realistic” that sales of fresh ICE cars could end by 2025
The EV revolution will roil oil markets. BNEF projects that by two thousand forty EVs will displace more than eight million barrels of oil a day — more oil than Saudi Arabia exports today.
But the influence on the oil industry will occur much sooner. The credit rating agency Fitch warned in October that the EV and battery revolutions could “tip the oil market from growth to spasm earlier than anticipated.” This will lead to an “investor death spiral” as very first the brainy money — and then everyone else’s — sell off oil company assets (bonds and stocks) presently valued at trillions of dollars.
BNEF pointed out last year that a global glut of just two million barrels a day is what triggered the two thousand fourteen oil price collapse. They’ve already told investors to expect the big crash in oil by two thousand twenty eight — and possibly much earlier.
We are reaching peak oil request swifter than anyone expected. No one can predict exactly when the next crash occurs, but Bloomberg has suggested this wise advice:
“One thing is certain: Whenever the oil crash comes, it will be only the beginning. Every year that goes after will bring more electrical cars to the road, and less request for oil. Someone will be left holding the barrel.”
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