XOM Predicts 1 out of 2 Vehicles will be Hybrids by 2040

This report agrees with an interview of a Stanford Professor / expert on energy for his book - that we will be using gas and carbon based fuels for many years.

Put another way, the Stanford professor made no mention that we will run out of gasoline in 20 or 30 years.

 

I read about this in the WSJ. In a separate article (both were from the same announcement by XOM), they quoted XOM as saying natural gas would become the dominant fuel of the future as dwindling petroleum becomes more expensive and the cost of natural gas becomes competitive. My immediate thought was ... why don't we have CNG-hybrids (Prius CNG) today?
With Honda having both hybrids and CNG, I think they could make a huge mark in the media/advertising/image by offering a CNG Insight - even if it doesn't have huge MPGe - it would still have a lot of "cool factor."

My second thought was that if it's going to take until 2040 before only half of vehicles are hybrids ... what's the planet going to be like by then? Will the polar ice caps be completely melted? Will polar bears have launched an all-out war on the human race? Will hurricanes be as common as lightning storms? Will half of the currently settled land on earth be non-inhabitable? (sea levels risen, hurricanes flooding Southeast (think New Orleans), rivers overflowing, arid lands (desert and drought).

I would like to know what Exxon Mobile bases this prediction upon? Lets see the data? Is the data linear? Will increasing temp, concerns about warming and oil dependence, and acceptance of hybrids accelerate hybrid adoption? Let's see the data.

 

You might start by looking at the gov agencies, EPA, EIA and so on, if you trust them.

 

It will look like water world or the road warrier. Movies haven't decided yet. Polar bears will be coming south to eat leaf owners, that hug in the nissan commercial was really to size up the prey. But probably nothing will have changed much in 30 years other than much higher oil prices and a much more polluted china leading the world's economy.

I know from earlier models, that they are non-linear, but have technology and price of oil as major driving factors. The exxon data has domestic oil imports remaining flat in the united states and other parts of the world buy more of that foreign oil, and the US reduces oil consumption. It credits the cafe standards as one of the drivers of hybridization, but by 2040 it will be phevs and hv not BEVs that will make up most of the electrified car market.

Electricity will shift from coal to ng and wind to reduce ghg. Its unclear if they are estimating this shift is because of regulation or customer demand.

 

I hadn't thought of it that way. Good point. More phEVs getting EV from ng.
I'll make an 'extrapolation prediction' .. many cars of the future will be CNG-PHEVs.

 

Holy crap! Are we still going to be driving cars 28 - 29 years from now?

I thought we'd all be riding around in hovercrafts by then.

 

I read the report as: Exxon Mobile can only hope that half of all vehicles by 2040 will still be 100% ICE burning vehicles.

 

Have you seen how much trunk space is lost on the Civic GX/NGV vs. a regular Civic? I'm not sure where they'd put the tank in a Prius w/o making the cargo area look funny.

There also aren't many CNG fueling stations and I'm not sure it's worth Toyota's development costs (nor Honda's).

 

The market seems to be strongly driven by auto mfrs., their commercials and oil companies. People choose from what is made available.

Latest commericial that irks me is by Chrysler for the 300. Says, 'first you have to build a fuel efficient vehicle that's worth building', then goes on to brag about a whopping 31 MPG highway.

Old gasoline habits die hard unfortunately.

Still there is work to be done on hybrids so potential customers aren't questioning or worried about the power output of a Prius v for example. And they have to lower costs because, let's face it, hybrids cost extra. People are usually looking for bargains.

 

CNG will never be a viable alternative as most people want more than about 100 mi. cruising range. You can't carry liquified natural gas unless you cryogenically cool it.

We won't "run out" of oil, it will just get very expensive. That "we'll run out by xxxx" was predicted for coal as well. Anyone see a shortage of coal?

I would expect the predicted hybrid dominance to occur in about 10 years. Money talks, and a hybrid will be much less expensive in the near future (it -can- be even now if you drive enough).

 

Well . . . the oilies will either hope for that, or they'll continue to bet the farm on hydrogen, as the fossil fuel companies still bring natural gas to the power hungry public ... and either electricity or natural gas is necessary to provide hydrogen.

 

I am thinking CNG is way better than that.
The Civic GX CNG is going for sale in all 50 states, and has equivalent of 8 gals of gaso. So I believe it can get 200+ miles, because its only ~24-30 MPG equivs. In a Prius config hopefully you'd be talking 300+ miles per tank I assume on CNG. It's easy to convert a car to CNG, so if fuel price is right, people will do it. Pickens plan was orginally CNG cars, but swiched over to trucks for infrastructure reasons.

 

Add the weight of a CNG tank to a Prius and the Prius would weigh as much as a 60's Lincoln, and it takes energy to pull that much weight around.