How fast can electric cars replace gas cars?

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WetEV

Well-known member
Joined
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GRA said:
WetEV said:
GRA said:
Assuming BEV sales actually do double every 2.5 years, and they aren't doing that here yet. Sure, time needs to be considered. Sometime around 2050 will probably be far too late, which is why more and more states are panning to ban sales of them by 2030 or 2035.

GRA has car sales and cars on the road confused. Among other things.


No, I don't. Last year in the U.S. we were at 1.8% of sales, and for the first half of this year, 2.5%, both years with total car sales constrained by outside factors which drove up the median price of cars, causing sales at the lower end of he the market to drop off, thus skewing the results.

Let's walk though this slowly. Average age of a vehicle on the road is about 12 years.

https://www.bts.gov/content/average-age-automobiles-and-trucks-operation-united-states

So if every vehicle sold today was a BEV, half of the vehicles in 12 years would still be ICE.

Or look at it this way.

The US makes, sells and also scraps about 14 million cars, trucks and SUVs per year. There are 280 million cars, trucks and SUVs. To replace them all would take at least 20 years. Longer because some newer cars get scrapped due to accidents, floods, forest fires, etc.

So if ICEs are banned in 2030, the earliest that almost all vehicles would be BEVs would be after 2050.

Unless we start making a lot more cars. Or make a large reduction of cars on the road. Or something else drastic.
 
WetEV said:
GRA said:
WetEV said:
GRA has car sales and cars on the road confused. Among other things.


No, I don't. Last year in the U.S. we were at 1.8% of sales, and for the first half of this year, 2.5%, both years with total car sales constrained by outside factors which drove up the median price of cars, causing sales at the lower end of he the market to drop off, thus skewing the results.

Let's walk though this slowly. Average age of a vehicle on the road is about 12 years.

https://www.bts.gov/content/average-age-automobiles-and-trucks-operation-united-states

So if every vehicle sold today was a BEV, half of the vehicles in 12 years would still be ICE.


Let me repeat your quote which the above was in reply to:

If BEV sales continue to double roughly ever 2.5 years, then sometime around 2030 BEV sales will be the majority of new cars. If the lifetime of cars on the road continues at 20+ years and that's true for both BEVs and ICEs, then sometime around 2050 BEVs will the majority of cars on the road.

Now, if BEVs make up the majority of sales by 2030 (with a total ban in say 2035) and the average age (not lifetime) of all vehicles is 12 years, then it won't take another 20 years for them to make up a majority of all cars.


WetEV said:
Or look at it this way.

The US makes, sells and also scraps about 14 million cars, trucks and SUVs per year. There are 280 million cars, trucks and SUVs. To replace them all would take at least 20 years. Longer because some newer cars get scrapped due to accidents, floods, forest fires, etc.

So if ICEs are banned in 2030, the earliest that almost all vehicles would be BEVs would be after 2050.

Unless we start making a lot more cars. Or make a large reduction of cars on the road. Or something else drastic.


Actually, we'd been selling about 17 million or so for a few years pre-pandemic although that dropped the average, and the chip shortage and higher prices plus still high unemployment will likely keep them down for a while. But as the generations who grew up thinking that driving a car themselves was something you did passes and there's a shift to AVs and MaaS, I suspect the total fleet will begin to decrease. Just how quickly I'm not going to guess.
 
I think banning *new sales* of ICE would make more sense. 9 Years from now, the battery tech will certainly be better, motor designs and power controllers designs will get better, maybe even to the point that a chip shortage would be moot with more integrated, less chip like designs.
The logistics of BEV are tough and unless something amazing happens with the car industry, making them as fast possible still doesn't mean that all ICE are removed from the road immediately. I can agree with that. The car industry is not the only one that causes global pollution though, other industries will have a take a inward look at how they can improve things too. Solar furnace is such an idea of using the sun to power metal smelting verse the old way of burning gas for example. I wouldn't depend on the car industry alone to save the world. :?

WetEV said:
Let's walk though this slowly. Average age of a vehicle on the road is about 12 years.

https://www.bts.gov/content/average-age-automobiles-and-trucks-operation-united-states

So if every vehicle sold today was a BEV, half of the vehicles in 12 years would still be ICE.

Or look at it this way.

The US makes, sells and also scraps about 14 million cars, trucks and SUVs per year. There are 280 million cars, trucks and SUVs. To replace them all would take at least 20 years. Longer because some newer cars get scrapped due to accidents, floods, forest fires, etc.

So if ICEs are banned in 2030, the earliest that almost all vehicles would be BEVs would be after 2050.

Unless we start making a lot more cars. Or make a large reduction of cars on the road. Or something else drastic.
 
If promises are met, we will see many truly "adoptable" offerings for first time EV'ers. In Texas the Ford Lightning, Rivian pickup, Hummer EVs (and likely many others) will be a new group of buyers. The focus on the SUV EV will have an impact on many families with kids (soccer Moms :D ). Although the current Leaf seems to be a great crossover. Give this 3-5 years and projections might become much clearer.

The use of idle battery capacity for home backup (V2H) and some serious monetary payback with energy arbitrage ( V2G - in Texas at least) might start another class of "adopters" that want a home "nano-grid" that dual functions their EV with solar.

I do hope that new entries are fully vetted - that could be a disaster if they cannot meet the standards established by the Leaf and Teslas - both of which have taken a couple of generations to work out the kinks.

Exciting times!
 
knightmb said:
I think banning *new sales* of ICE would make more sense.


If the above was in reply to me rather than WetEV I should have been clearer. I meant a ban on new ICE sales* as you said, which California and several other states are planning for 2035 (WA state says they intend 2030, but we'll see). Sorry for the confusion. From the context of his post I believe WetEV was also referring to a new sales ban in 2030, not an outright one, and that was what I was replying to.


* Note, at least CA's draft plan allows for PHEVs, albeit crippled like the i3 REx so that the AER has to be used first. AFAIK the final rules have yet to be issued.


knightmb said:
9 Years from now, the battery tech will certainly be better, motor designs and power controllers designs will get better, maybe even to the point that a chip shortage would be moot with more integrated, less chip like designs.

The logistics of BEV are tough and unless something amazing happens with the car industry, making them as fast possible still doesn't mean that all ICE are removed from the road immediately. I can agree with that. The car industry is not the only one that causes global pollution though, other industries will have a take a inward look at how they can improve things too. Solar furnace is such an idea of using the sun to power metal smelting verse the old way of burning gas for example. I wouldn't depend on the car industry alone to save the world. :?

WetEV said:
Let's walk though this slowly. Average age of a vehicle on the road is about 12 years.

https://www.bts.gov/content/average-age-automobiles-and-trucks-operation-united-states

So if every vehicle sold today was a BEV, half of the vehicles in 12 years would still be ICE.

Or look at it this way.

The US makes, sells and also scraps about 14 million cars, trucks and SUVs per year. There are 280 million cars, trucks and SUVs. To replace them all would take at least 20 years. Longer because some newer cars get scrapped due to accidents, floods, forest fires, etc.

So if ICEs are banned in 2030, the earliest that almost all vehicles would be BEVs would be after 2050.

Unless we start making a lot more cars. Or make a large reduction of cars on the road. Or something else drastic.
 
GRA said:
If BEV sales continue to double roughly ever 2.5 years, then sometime around 2030 BEV sales will be the majority of new cars. If the lifetime of cars on the road continues at 20+ years and that's true for both BEVs and ICEs, then sometime around 2050 BEVs will the majority of cars on the road.

Now, if BEVs make up the majority of sales by 2030 (with a total ban in say 2035) and the average age (not lifetime) of all vehicles is 12 years, then it won't take another 20 years for them to make up a majority of all cars.

Majority is 50% + 1.

Assume that BEV sales hit 50% + 1 and hang.

Average age on the road is one point on a distribution, and doesn't define the rest of the points. Consider that a few cars have much longer lifetimes, I've seen multiple Model T's on the road.

Assume that BEVs and ICEs have the same exact life distribution, but that thousands of ICEs are 'classics', like the Model T, and will be on the road for hundreds of years. And BEVs are never considered classics.


The answer never. Of course, this is an extreme example, and doesn't include the total ban in 2035. But even then, realistic life distributions could prevent BEVs from being the majority of cars on to road until well after 2050. Consider Cuban cars.

Average lifetime would be about twice average age, but of course not exactly.

And average lifetime of a BEV produced in 2030 compared with an ICE produced in 2030 is speculative at best.

I used non-precise language for a reason. The answer isn't known to any exactness.
 
GRA said:
From the context of his post I believe WetEV was also referring to a new sales ban in 2030, not an outright one, and that was what I was replying to.

If I implied that, sorry.

ICE sales ban isn't a good idea. Better to let ICE die than murder it.
 
I get asked this very question almost every time I give an EV talk (like last week).
There is obviously a lot of demand/desire out there for EVs, but people are still concerned about range...until they realize there are a lot of 200 mile range EVs out there (that seems to be the magic number...and 300 miles is just a bonus). I think the only wild card here is there does seem to be a trend toward ride-sharing/public transit (especially where folks are moving from the suburbs back to the city) that will most likely lower the long-term private vehicle count.
 
WetEV said:
Assume that BEVs and ICEs have the same exact life distribution, but that thousands of ICEs are 'classics', like the Model T, and will be on the road for hundreds of years. And BEVs are never considered classics.
I wouldn't see that as an issue, classic cars are not daily drivers and while you may see many at a car show or even a few driving around town on the weekends, the number of modern sedan, trucks, suv, etc. that drive around outnumber them a million to 1 or more. When BEV reaches the critical tipping point (whatever that might be), then a lot of those daily drivers can be retired and parted for collectors or just recycled into something else.

As mentioned before, many here, including myself always get the same questions about BEV ownership and driving experience. The number 2 question I always get is people asking how a ICE is able to make more pollution than the volume or weight of the gasoline it uses. I always have to explain that the ICE is sucking in the air constantly and that is how it is about to make "tons" of pollution. ;)
 
WetEV said:
GRA said:
If BEV sales continue to double roughly ever 2.5 years, then sometime around 2030 BEV sales will be the majority of new cars. If the lifetime of cars on the road continues at 20+ years and that's true for both BEVs and ICEs, then sometime around 2050 BEVs will the majority of cars on the road.

Now, if BEVs make up the majority of sales by 2030 (with a total ban in say 2035) and the average age (not lifetime) of all vehicles is 12 years, then it won't take another 20 years for them to make up a majority of all cars.

Majority is 50% + 1.

Assume that BEV sales hit 50% + 1 and hang.


How do you figure that's a reasonable assumption, given the fact that new sales will be banned?


WetEV said:
Average age on the road is one point on a distribution, and doesn't define the rest of the points. Consider that a few cars have much longer lifetimes, I've seen multiple Model T's on the road.

The answer never. Of course, this is an extreme example, and doesn't include the total ban in 2035. But even then, realistic life distributions could prevent BEVs from being the majority of cars on to road until well after 2050. Consider Cuban cars.

Assume that BEVs and ICEs have the same exact life distribution, but that thousands of ICEs are 'classics', like the Model T, and will be on the road for hundreds of years. And BEVs are never considered classics.

Average lifetime would be about twice average age, but of course not exactly.

And average lifetime of a BEV produced in 2030 compared with an ICE produced in 2030 is speculative at best.

I used non-precise language for a reason. The answer isn't known to any exactness.


Yes, it's an extreme example, and an erroneous conclusion. We're not talking about the last few hundred or thousand Model Ts, '60s muscle cars or low-riders or my landlord's '49 Cadillacs, or a country where modern replacements simply weren't available. We're talking about the mass of the currently 280 million strong fleet. There will always been enthusiasts keeping a small and ever shrinking number of long obsolete tech products going: https://www.eaa.org/eaa/events-and-experiences/fly-the-ford-eaa-ford-tri-motor-airplane-tour

The fact that there are a few of these 1920's a/c which were once used as transcontinental airliners still flying doesn't change the fact that the commercial fleet is made up of jets for longer trips and turboprops for shorter ones (akin to those the Tri-Motor once made). For that matter, there are still DC-3s in active commercial servic (the last came off the line in 1946 IIRR) but that's because no one has been able to build an adequate replacement for anything like its price, and the a/c was overbuilt so its fatigue life is exceptional: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-3#DC-3_today It's possible that there will be a similar niche that only an ICE can fill.

BTW, I have no doubt that the Model S will be considered a classic - it was the first modern BEV that could compete head-to-head reasonably well with (expensive) ICEs (along with the essential SC infrastructure), and IMO unlike all the subsequent Tesla models has classic lines.
 
Stanton said:
I get asked this very question almost every time I give an EV talk (like last week).
There is obviously a lot of demand/desire out there for EVs, but people are still concerned about range...until they realize there are a lot of 200 mile range EVs out there (that seems to be the magic number...and 300 miles is just a bonus).


See https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=32564


Stanton said:
I think the only wild card here is there does seem to be a trend toward ride-sharing/public transit (especially where folks are moving from the suburbs back to the city) that will most likely lower the long-term private vehicle count.


Yup, the level of success or failure of new urbanist trends such as the above & walking/biking, plus WFH sre the major wildcards that will determine future fleet size.
 
You claimed that you failed to get me to think, something that I do rather a lot of without any need for your help. In fact, I went to a fair amount of effort in that same post explaining why I disagreed with your example.
 
GRA said:
You claimed that you failed to get me to think, something that I do rather a lot of without any need for your help. In fact, I went to a fair amount of effort in that same post explaining why I disagreed with your example.
Showing that you totally missed the point.

I should have used a different example.
 
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