13 years have passed since the iPhone appeared on the market. He revolutionized the world of mobile phones. Electric cars today are making the same revolution in a world previously living on the burning of hydrocarbon carriers.
The jerk that Tesla cars made gave a powerful impetus to other car companies, just as Apple turned the mobile phone market upside down.
But what happens when new technologies enter the latest mode of movement?
Currently, the main problem of electric vehicles is the creation of sufficiently powerful batteries. But their appearance is just around the corner. What will happen next? Will the oil market collapse?
“Electric cars have little effect on oil sales,” says David Eaton, head of technology at British Petroleum, the oil giant. - True, if you put all the electric cars together, you can still get some significant numbers ...
Nevertheless, today Tesla is already testing electric vehicles with new batteries on the roads of California and Arizona.
Another innovation that we will meet in the coming years is a car without a driver. Such cars can not yet be produced on busy city streets, but between cities, especially on the deserted roads of the Midwestern United States, they can drive completely freely.
The combination of all three technologies, an electric car, long-term use batteries, the presence of a full-fledged computer in a small device, will create a fundamentally new type of transport.
In addition, an important role is played by such a factor as the slow wear of the electric car engine. An automobile engine operating on the principle of internal combustion consists of four cylinders. Under the hood, there are approximately 130 parts, some of which are continuously moving, so they wear out quickly. In an electric vehicle engine, there are three moving parts.
“Competitiveness depends on car use,” says Laszlo Varro, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, “and on oil prices.” If electric cars in Europe become widespread, the price of oil, in order to be competitive, should be $ 30 per barrel.
According to Bloomberg, another factor limiting the spread of electric vehicles is their high cost. However, according to experts, in 2020, the cost of electric vehicles and gasoline vehicles will equal.
By 2019, Uber plans to start using a hybrid taxi network in London, which will operate on both gasoline and electricity. And by 2025, according to them, electric cars will become more efficient than gasoline ones.
As for the technologies of autonomous driving, they, according to the Bloomberg agency, are unlikely to be adopted everywhere until 2030.
All this will sharply reduce the demand for oil. By 2040, oil demand is expected to fall to 8 million barrels per day. What will be the price of oil? We have already witnessed the fact that before our eyes the oil price fell from $ 146 to $ 36 per barrel.
However, oil can not only be burned. Various types of plastics and fertilizers can be made from oil.
Can you predict where the technology will lead? When Steve Jobs first demonstrated the new iPhone model, no one could have predicted what problems this would cause for everyone, from camera manufacturers to chewing gum sellers. Smartphones and their apps have allowed us to create a new business model.