While a Trump presidency couldn’t slam the brakes on the E.V. transition, it could throw enough sand in the gears to slow it down. And that might have significant consequences for the fight to stop global warming.
While a Trump presidency couldn’t slam the brakes on the E.V. transition, it could throw enough sand in the gears to slow it down. And that might have significant consequences for the fight to stop global warming.
Do you think it will work that way?
The more people switch to EVs the cheaper fuel will be, which incentivised people to drive ICE vehicles.
Fossil fuel extraction is an extreme economy of scale. This is only true to a point.
More people driving EVs won’t make (oil-based) fuel cheaper. Every person getting off oil makes producing oil-based fuels more expensive, as the economies of scale are reduced.
Go to extremes if that helps picture it: imagine you’re suddenly the only person on Earth driving an ICE car. How much would you be paying for a fill-up, which now involves finding, extracting, shipping and refining fuel just for you: more than today or less than today?
Fuel prices halved during covid when everyone stayed home.
All the infrastructure is in place, the fuel needs to be sold.
Reduced demand will only reduce production of fuel from more expensive wells, like where the oil is more difficult to reach.
Yeah but nobody retired a marginally profitable fuel refinery that became unprofitable during covid because they knew demand would return soon. The effect isn’t instantaneous, but all the infrastructure has operation and maintenance costs. With fewer overall consumers all the overhead has to go somewhere eventually.
Yeah, but I think you might be waiting longer than you imagine.
There might be a long tail of barely profitable wells with low output, but I suspect the vast majority of current production can sustain a significant reduction in retail price and still be more profitable than simply capping the well.
Every person that switches to an EV increases the demand for electricity and reduces the demand for fuel.