The fun thing about making a big prognostication on the Internet is that everyone can easily find it and toss it back in your face if you’re incorrect. I’ve been wrong before and I know it’s usually not fatal, so let me start this Friday episode of The Morning Dump with a big swing: American gasoline consumption has peaked and we’re probably never going back.
There’s a big report out making the case for peak gasoline consumption (which is different from overall energy consumption) and it seems reasonable to me. If there’s anything that is going to hold us back it’s car sales as our fleet ages and people aren’t buying as many new cars as the market would expect.
I say this even though Toyota came out earlier today in Japan and said that it expects to sell way fewer EVs than initially predicted. BMW would likely agree with me on U.S. oil consumption, though partially because it thinks hydrogen cars are going to be a thing. I’m skeptical but, again, I’ve been wrong before.
The Case For Peak Gasoline
Right off the bat, let me clarify that there’s a difference between peak oil and peak gasoline consumption. While it’s possible we’ll globally hit peak oil as soon as 2030, petroleum products are used for a wide variety of activities including power generation, aviation, and marine activity.
What I’m talking about is America’s use of the finished petroleum product known as gasoline, which is what most of us use to power our non-electric cars. Americans love using gasoline, and we’ve historically been in a pattern where we ended up using more of it every year.
There are a lot of factors that contribute to this, and it’s worth taking them individually so we can see why many experts think we’ve already hit the roof. First, let’s take the things that contribute to gasoline consumption going up:
- More cars (i.e., more cars per capita).
- More people (i.e. population growth)
- More vehicle miles traveled (i.e. people driving more or longer distances)
- Less efficient vehicles being purchased
- People having more money (thus traveling more and buying bigger, less efficient cars)
This is the way it worked, generally, for many years. Specifically, as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP, which is one way to measure the economy) went upwards you’d expect people to drive more and get that bigger Cadillac or trade up from a Chevy Malibu to a Chevy Suburban.
I would argue that this pattern is broken, and I’ll go back to 1970, basically, to show this
Let’s start with the easy one: There are more people now than in 1970. According to the Census Bureau, there were about 203 million people in America in 1970 and there were about 330 million people in 2020. Some are miserable, some are happy, but most of them drive cars.
Population growth stalled a bit during the pandemic (it seems to be coming back), but we can assume there are going to be more people in 2030 than now unless something terrible happens.
If all other things were equal, that would mean we would use more gasoline every year and, for the most part, that’s happened (with some variance for economic activity and that one giant global pandemic). But gasoline consumption peaked in 2018 at 392 million gallons per day in 2018 according to the U.S. EIA. Again, it moves up and down a little, but why wouldn’t it keep moving up over the long term?
Car ownership has gone up since 1970 of course, with there being an average of 545 vehicles per 1,000 people in America back then. Today, it’s somewhere closer to around 830-840, depending on whom you ask. This number has been fairly stable or, even, has dropped since the early aughts. It’s possible this number goes up, but with car sales declining my guess is it’ll level off a bit or even go down.
GDP? I mean, who really knows, right? My guess is it’ll mostly go up, but I cannot prove that. If it goes down then there’s an even bigger case for peak gasoline.
Ok, so what about vehicle miles traveled? Here’s a handy chart showing that those peaked around 2019, dropped during the pandemic, and have since rebounded. Will this figure continue to rise? Possibly. I’m going to assume it will.
So: GDP is going up, there are more people, and even if those people travel the same amount as everyone else, on average, the fact that there are more people (and roughly the same number of cars per 1,000 people) means more vehicle miles traveled, which means more gasoline consumption.
Except, as mentioned above, that’s not necessarily happening. The reason is pretty simple: When people have more money they buy newer cars, which are often more efficient cars, oftentimes even if those cars are bigger. And it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s a hybrid, an EV, or just a regular car with a smaller turbo motor, the trade-up factor is completely broken and has been for a while.
Below is a chart from the U.S. Department of Energy that is my absolute favorite way to visualize this:
That shows the average fuel economy of the U.S. fleet in MPG and the average amount of power a vehicle has as measured in peak horsepower. The Malaise Era truly sucked and you can see that power got way worse, which made fuel economy better, but generally made everyone else miserable.
Automakers figured out how to squeeze more power out of cars without using a ton more gasoline, but fuel economy (on average) didn’t improve all that much. This came to a head in the Bush Administration. You can credit high gas prices or, maybe, Al Gore and “An Inconvenient Truth,” or the Toyota Prius, Elon Musk, or whatever you want, but people suddenly decided they still wanted bigger SUVs, they just didn’t want them to use as much fuel.
To the credit of the auto industry, which is often blamed for making the environment worse, they’ve collectively done a pretty kick-ass job of getting people into bigger/nicer/safer cars that are waaaaaay more efficient. Some credit also goes to the government, which has increasingly mandated cars to be better for the environment. There’s always a lot of bitchin’ and moanin’ about increased fuel economy standards, but we are in a Have Your Cake And Eat It moment.
Cars are more powerful. They’re bigger. They’re safer. They’re generally nicer. And they’re almost all more efficient. I also think they’ll continue to get more efficient as corporate average fuel economy standards get more stringent:
Let’s assume that the industry is right and this is too hard and people don’t buy as many EVs, blah blah blah, I think the huge increase in popularity of hybrids and PHEVs means that consumer behavior is fundamentally changing.
And I’m not alone! There’s a big Bloomberg Opinion piece this week laying out basically the same arguments and seems to come to the same conclusion that it would be hard to reverse this trend:
The recent slowdown in sales of EVs and the potential election of another Trump administration inclined to make tailpipes great again could conceivably curb efficiency gains. Given the economic and demographic headwinds, however, they would have to slow to a stop or even reverse in order to get back to 2018 demand levels sometime this decade. And while legacy automakers in the US have scaled back targets for battery electric vehicles, enthusiasm for plug-in hybrids has risen, which is still bullish for efficiency and bearish for gasoline.
On any reasonable view, US gasoline demand, accounting for one in every 12 barrels of oil consumed worldwide, has peaked.
With credit to economists like Philip Verleger, who noted this inversion between per capita economic growth and fuel consumption years ago, I just don’t see how we’re ever going back.
It Would Be Nice If More People Bought Cars
It was mostly a good month for car sales, though it depends a lot on who you are. If you’re a company selling a lot of hybrids and crossovers you’re probably doing just fine. If you have a more traditional lineup it might have been a little tougher, though the lack of monthly sales reports from many automakers is making it harder to see.
Still, the seasonally adjusted annual selling rate (SAAR) was down according to Automotive News:
Deliveries rose 13 percent to 796,555 vehicles among the seven automakers that report monthly U.S. sales results, according to the Automotive News Research & Data Center. The rest of the industry reports on a quarterly basis.
Despite gains posted by those seven companies, the U.S. adjusted sales rate, or SAAR, fell to 15.1 million in August compared with 16.0 million in July and 15.5 million in August 2023, according to Motor Intelligence. The SAAR was forecast to reach 15.2 million to 15.4 million, according to previous estimates. The SAAR has remained above 15 million since January.
[…]
“New vehicle affordability remains the biggest obstacle preventing further advances in the pace of auto sales,” said Chris Hopson, principal analyst at S&P Global Mobility. “The current environment of still-high interest rates and slow-to-recede vehicle prices are translating to still-high monthly payments and little progress for new-vehicle demand.”
Thinking about our first story, this is one of those counter-intuitive things where it would be better for the economy and for the environment if everyone went out and replaced their aging cars with newer hybrids that are much more efficient.
My rough guess is that the Fed cuts by 50 bps in September and, by November we see much better financing deals from automakers so spur a strong end to the year, but that doesn’t take into account more soft jobs reports or a weird election result.
Toyota Cutting Global EV Forecast Production By 30%
Toyota thinks it’s going to make a million electric vehicles in 2026, which is a massive increase over the roughly 150-200k it’s going to sell this year. Still, that number is way down from its initial plan.
Toyota Motor plans to significantly slow its production of electric vehicles, cutting its global output forecast for 2026 to 1 million cars, some 30% lower than the previously announced sales forecast for the same year, Nikkei has learned.
The Japanese automaker’s decision to cut EV production was prompted by the slowdown in the global EV market. Toyota has notified its parts suppliers of the decision.
Under the new plan, Toyota aims to produce a little more than 400,000 EVs in 2025 and to more than double production the following year.
This seems reasonable given current EV demand projections. Toyota is the worldwide leader in hybrids and should be mostly hybrid/EV by 2026.
BMW Is Still Doing Hydrogen Cars
I keep writing this story and I’m surprised every time. Maybe America has reached peak gasoline consumption because people will buy hydrogen cars! (I don’t think they will).
BMW aims to bring its first hydrogen-powered vehicle onto the market in 2028, using fuel cell technology developed with Toyota Motor Corp, the German carmaker said on Thursday.
The company said the vehicle would be an existing model with a hydrogen fuel cell drive option, without giving further details. It also did not give details on price or production volume.
BMW CEO Oliver Zipse said in a statement the vehicle would “highlight how technological progress is shaping the mobility of the future.”
Sure, why not? What do I know?
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
It’s “Range Life” from Pavement. Get it? Range life? I can’t wait for the new Pavement movie, man. I’m old.
The Big Question
How wrong am I?
I predict we become sort of like Cuba, where people keep cars running for decades past their expiration date. New car prices are insane and many just can’t afford one. Used prices are also pretty high, depending on what you buy. Electric just isn’t there yet… which leads me to believe you’ll see a lot of 30 year old cars on the road in the future.
Not to mention how car insurance premiums keep skyrocketing !
Yet another factor making new vehicle purchases less affordable!
Speaking of hilariously bad predictions, I’m old enough to remember when “peak oil” meant “oil consumption will peak because we’ll run out of it”. Politicians (and scientists!) of all stripes credulously pushed this for *years*. Now, it seems highly likely we’ll never exhaust all the oil reserves on the Earth.
The election will have no bearing whatsoever on vehicle fuel efficiency. Consumers now expect good efficiency and demand it in new vehicles. As a result, there is now a demand-driven efficiency floor on what can be profitably sold which is far more powerful than any regulation.
I remain curious about hydrogen and think it’s worth funding more experimentation as we did for EVs. It’s the only thing right now that provides comparable (but still slower) fueling speed to gasoline while being completely zero tailpipe emission. A battery breakthrough would make it moot, but that hasn’t happened yet.
Yes and no. Development of new extraction methodologies and technologies have kept moving that particular brand of peak. Tar sands, fracking, shale oil, each with their own costs and incur their own damages, all in pursuit of indefatigable oil resources.
And you might be right about never exhausting all the oil reserves on Earth, but for the wrong reasons: we won’t get the chance. Repeating the 19th and 20th centuries in the 21st century makes it hard to believe that there will be much in the way of a 22nd or 23rd century, at least as far as humanity is concerned.
from the right: https://reason.com/2012/06/01/why-well-never-run-out-of-oil/
and the left: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/7/12/23791559/resource-scarity-peak-oil-fracking
Note the 11 year difference, if that matters to you as some kind of lagging indicator; I read about it long before then, this was just the first convenient link at hand.
I think hydrogen will suffice as energy storage medium for production in places the actual electricity cannot be shipped to market or if there’s overproduction. Wind/sunfarms in faraway places and wind anyho is quite fickle stuff.
What always puzzles me is why bio fuels and biogas is so overlooked. Biodiesel is already a think in this side of the pond, about 20% more expensive than the regular stuff, carbon neutral and made of waste. Also any hydrocarbons will do, so algae, etc, polluting water would do. Heck nazis used to make it from coal (they didn’t have oil sources), but that’s hardly carbon neutral.
And biggest puzzle is the biogas or methane. Gas engines can use it pretty much directly, it’s 10x worse green house gas than co2, so more one burns it the better. And it forms anyho anywhere anything rots (severs, composts, bottom of seas). Would make sense to colled it in more organized matter. In our city most busses and some taxis already use it, but it’s not properly encouraged and it’s actually has some extra taxes, which is insane.
Just my thoughts of how to have the V8 cake and eat it too.
Biofuel’s weaknesses usually boil down to scale and feedstock. Used fry oil is great, but despite evidence to the contrary, America’s appetite for fried foods is not actually infinite. Right now, 40% of US corn is devoted to ethanol, fulfilling 9% of our gasoline needs. Likewise, 46% of our soybean oil is used for biodiesel, meeting just 7.3% of our diesel demand. We don’t have enough farmland.
The difficulty with biogas is feedstock quality/consistency. It seems simple to make something rot, but making it happen quickly and consistently is notoriously difficult. The microbes are sensitive and will yeet themselves into the void at the slightest excuse. So biogas digesters/reactors have to be designed for one extremely consistent feedstock — railroad ties, for example. Sewage-based biogas is consistent, but has a yield of 1 cubic foot per 100 gallons of wastewater, so a household would be able to offset around 2% of its natural gas demand (just heating/cooking, not automotive fuel).
Biofuel has been waiting for a breakthrough moment for most of my lifetime. It might finally happen now that the aviation industry has skin in the game, but it’s anyone’s guess whether biofuels or synfuels come out on top for aviation.
In my neck of the woods, biodiesel is also made from wood processing waste. Not just cooking oil, which of course too can be used. And I would claim that it would be great way for the semis and other diesel heavy equipment to go carbon neutral.
I think there’s lot of potential in the biogas, but it boils down to concentrated waste handling and extraction. Also farms can collect this in large quantities, altough not sure how US system handles the cow dung. Here the cows are indoors most of the year and the shit & fluids go to tanks. Where it produces quite lot of methaine.
Also worth noting that I didn’t mean one could replace the whole gasoline infra with biogas. Just that one could use the “fun” car in electrified (more or less) future, with little changes.
You forgot the main driving factor behind peak gasoline consumption – I installed new spark plugs in my Miata.
Toyota: “Nobody wants EVs. This is a sincere belief and definitely not because of Japanese domestic politics, the fact that EVs cannibalize hybrid sales, or because we can’t ever admit the CEO is wrong.”
Investors: (watching EV marketshare triple in four years) “No, I think people want EVs.”
Toyota: “Whatever, we’ll make them when we finish our solid state battery that was supposed to be done 13 years ago.”
Investors: (looking at climate graphs) “No, I think you’ll regret if you have none by the time Florida sinks.”
Toyota: (builds an EV that would have been out of date ten years ago, hideous, filled with design flaws, no glovebox, gauge cluster is hidden, also the wheels fall off) “See? I told you nobody wants EVs. Now, about those hybrids, our average fuel economy is now 27.8mpg, so we’ve finally surpassed Mazda, which sold zero hybrids last year…”
Tell me you haven’t driven a BZ4X without telling me you haven’t driven a bZ4X. (I have a Solterra, and it’s OK)
I haven’t driven either flavor myself, but I don’t doubt you. I had a VW ID.4 for about a year and was surprised by how good it was, in spite of the bad reviews. However, it did have an Achilles heel: the infotainment system, which also controlled the HVAC system. The UI was fine, but the system would crash frequently, to the point that it was unusable most of the time. VW did not have a fix and I’m not sure they ever will. I got so frustrated that I just ditched the car and got a Tesla Model Y. The Tesla has much better software and the Supercharger network is excellent. I can drive the car anywhere I want without worrying about being able to charge. I couldn’t do that with the VW. Where the Tesla falls down to a certain degree is in being a good transportation appliance. It’s not as roomy as the VW was, and it rides too firmly. Also, I think Tesla has gone too far in eliminating physical controls, particularly in their newest offerings.
I see what you did there. 😉
Too early to tell.
We are less than five years removed from the entire world shutting down, and subsequently realizing that certain roles can be fully or partially remote. And while some offices are bringing their workforce back in, others have not.
The other unknown is our re-shoring of certain industries, as we de-globalize supply chains. Those goods and resources need to be transported somehow. It takes time to build and bring industrial facilities online, not to mention the design, permitting, and other work that needs to be done in advance.
Realistically, we should see the rate of oil consumption level off, as more manufacturers pivot to entirely hybridized or electric powertrain options. It’s just a matter of if that change in rate change will equate to a leveling off of actual consumption.
I mean, you could’ve bought a Cayenne. There are hybrid Cayennes, man! It’s always the answer!
When I finally decided to begin the process of selling my van, “Prius” was what came to mind, and eventually “Prius v” also entered the ring once I learned of their existence. If I’m no longer going to have ~240 cubic feet of storage and 17mpg highway, I want to go in the exact opposite direction and maximize fuel economy, ideally while still having a relatively good amount of space.
67 cubic feet (behind front seats) plus 44-38 mpg ain’t bad at all. Dunno what vehicle I would get next, but ideally I’d love to still have a hybrid with an eCVT.
RAV4 hybrid is pretty great. Similar fuel economy to your Prius V, a bit bigger and nicer interior, and much more power.
If I knew I’d still have my Prius after 11 years, I would have bought the V for the extra space. Oh well.
As a former Prius owner myself, might I interested you in a n̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶e̶g̶g̶ Maverick in these trying times?
I feel like Mavericks are still new enough that they might be out of my price range. Regardless, for my lifestyle, pickup beds, covered or not, are just not ideal.
Either way, I have no intention of replacing this car until it is forced–either by a too-expensive part failure (e.g., engine and brake accumulator breaking at the same time), or just getting totaled.
“Some are miserable, some are happy, but most of them drive cars”
Sublime
“The Malaise Era truly sucked and you can see that power got way worse, which made fuel economy better, but generally made everyone else miserable.”
As someone who was there I disagree. It wasn’t the lower horsepower making people miserable. Even malaise era cars – when they worked – had plenty of power to do car things. A poster child of malaise, a carburetted 4 cyl Pinto with an air pump and busted A/C could climb from sea level to 7000′ into the San Bernardino mountains with a family of 5 and a weekend’s worth of stuff no problem.
“An air pump and busted A/C” in a carb’d Pinto sounds pretty miserable to me!
Not as miserable as a first degree smog alert on a hot summer’s day with no central A/C. If you’ve ever been downwind of a major wildfire its pretty close to that.
I remember sitting in Bay Area traffic in even the early to mid 80s and getting a major headache. I have no idea how people could live in LA back then.
It was worse than that. Both my parents smoked.
If I could replace smog with cigarette smoke, I’d do it in a heartbeat, although I suppose in your case it was an additive situation 🙂
Pipe and cigarette.
Everything is within walking distance if you have the time.
Fiji is going to be quite a challenge.
Toyota makes one of the worst EVs so it losing sales should not really be much of a surprise.
Hydrogen for passenger vehicles has been proven to be a fools errand. It takes too much room to store and it’s just making electricity. It’s better to just put that electricity into a battery to run the car. Its more efficient than using electricity to make hydrogen to pump into a car to have the car turn it back into electricity. Direct burning of hydrogen is much worse because the tank necessary to even give a car 300 miles of range would take too much passenger space.
That said hydrogen currently makes sense for commercial spaces.
If people have problems with EVs in parking garages, then how will they feel with massive tanks of highly compressed hydrogen everywhere?
“That said hydrogen makes sense for commercial spaces”
How do you mean? For transport? For energy storage? For chemical processes?
“If people have problems with EVs in parking garages, then how will they feel with massive tanks of highly compressed hydrogen everywhere?”
Pretty good actually. One of the few benefits of hydrogen is its pretty safe for a highly flammable, compressed gas. It disperses quickly and does not pool like heavier than air gasses.
I believe it’s been proven to be a good use for commercial trucking. In this case, the infrastructure would support it. Meaning, if the trucks are going back and forth on a regular route, it makes sense to build a gas station on each side to support it. But, random stations make no sense, even commercially (that’s last point is my opinion, at least).
It makes no sense to replace all the gasoline stations with hydrogen, when moving to electric is just way more cost effective in the long run. Especially if we standardize (we will eventually) the batteries, and start swapping them out faster than filling a tank (BJ’s pumps are SOOOO slow it takes forever).
It only makes some sense compared to batteries and only then if you squint REALLY hard with blinders on.
I say this because at least for the foreseeable future hydrogen in trucking does not reduce FF use. If anything it might increase such use. Which is why I suspect it is being considered at all. Its a way to green wash emissions.
(molecular) Hydrogen has to come from somewhere. There are no significant proven natural reserves of hydrogen on earth. Last time I did the math such natural reserves would meet about three days of the worlds energy demand, including the most recent discoveries.
Currently about 95% of hydrogen comes from natural gas. So you’re still making CO2 just in a factory rather than a tailpipe. Most of that hydrogen is made for industrial use (steel, fertilizer, etc). More on that in a bit.
But what about sequestering it? So far such sequestering promises have been just that, promises with few large scale results.
The other issue with hydrogen for transport is any renewable hydrogen must first and foremost be used to replace FF generated industrial hydrogen, otherwise you are again just shifting emissions from tailpipe to smokestack.
It gets worse. That renewable hydrogen can only be made from surplus renewable energy that would otherwise go to waste, otherwise that renewable energy could replace FF generated energy, again shifting emissions from tailpipe to smokestack.
At the moment it would take the entire renewable energy output of the United States, including all its hydro output to supply the energy contained in the worlds industrial hydrogen needs. so clearly there is nowhere near enough surplus to get anywhere close.
So IMO hydrogen for transport, any transport is a fool’s errand.
There is a fuel cell powered passenger train about to enter service in San Bernardino, CA. In testing it went 1740+ miles on one tank of H2. In 2022, California wasted 2.4 million megawatt-hours of electricity, 95% of which was solar energy. This is because the state could not use the power at the time of generation and could not store it. If this excess were to be used to make Hydrogen, it would not be shifting from tailpipe to smokestack.
Not true. That hydrogen can just as easily be used by industry to replace hydrogen now made by steam reforming natural gas.
So this train still does shift the emissions from tailpipe to smokestack. There is no net win here.
A solar-powered H2O splitter slowly filling the tank at home would be just the thing. The reserves of water are massively huge.
And where there is no water, there are devices that remove water vapor from the air, even in the desert. One more solar panel to power that thing and voila, the hydrogen-powered desert buggy gets its tank topped off every day.
It’s so easy to naysay, but so much better to see good ideas put into place.
“A solar-powered H2O splitter slowly filling the tank at home would be just the thing. The reserves of water are massively huge”
Water is not the shortfall, energy is. You’d be much better off using your solar power to charge a battery:
Batteries have about a 90-95% return whereas hydrogen is 40% or lower, much lower for a budget home system You’ll end up throwing away 60-80% of your power with hydrogen vs 5-10% with a battery.
That means if you put that power into a BEV you’ll get over twice as far. When you run out of power you’ll be much more likely to find a charger than a hydrogen station out in the wild to keep you going.
There’s also the costs and maintainence involved; hydrogen electrolyzers and 10k psi compressors are very expensive and take a LOT of work to maintain. Keep in mind you still need all the electrical stuff needed to charge a BEV to run an electrolyzer too so hydrogen only adds expense, complexity, space requirements, failure modes, and safety risks. Compare that to a BEV that just plugs into the same port and it’s no contest.
“It’s so easy to naysay, but so much better to see good ideas put into place”
There are many, many ideas better than this. Hydrogen is only the best idea of last resort.
Battolysers are both extremely long lasting and stable Nickel-Iron (Edison) batteries that also produce Hydrogen as a byproduct. Nickel-Iron batteries were used on early brass-era electric vehicles, Jay Leno owns one.
Good for Jay Leno, not so great for someone with a mortgage.
The smallest unit at 800kWh or 24 GGE capacity has a footprint of 75 sqm or about 750 sqft. I’m assuming this is because they don’t compress the gas much to save on energy. 68% RT system efficiency is quite good for hydrogen BUT still not as good as a battery or even pumped hydro.
Assuming that gas is not compressed (which explains the footprint and the higher efficiency) it will need to be compressed to 10k PSI or liquefied to be useful for transportation. Both are energy intensive processes and require pricey, maintenance needing additional hardware. That’s going to make an already expensive proposition that much more so.
Then there’s the cost, how much are these things? Jay Leno has plenty of money but most folks don’t have that kind of cash.
Here’s what Bloomberg had to say JUST about electrolyzers:
Chinese developers received such an offer in 2021 for as little as $303/kW – that is, a total of around €3 million ($3.2 million). This did not include the grid-connection fee, high-voltage transformers, or other “soft” costs such as expenses for development, approvals and financing agreements.
Wang said that the project costs in Western markets with domestically produced electrolyzers are around four times as high. Investment costs averaged €1,200/kW for alkaline electrolyzers and €1,400/kW for proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzers.
Cheaper offers, such as €180/kW, from Peric for an 80 MW plant in China; or €521/kW, from Thyssenkrupp for a 2 GW plant in Saudi Arabia, do not include all project costs and are, therefore, not comparable. They do include electrolysis stacks, gas liquid separation and purification, and the water supply. However, power electronics and control cabinets are excluded.
…
Bloomberg reported on offers for such container solutions for $1,000/kW. Industry insiders have even reported offers as low as $700/kW, said Wang. One such container solution was presented in a pv magazine Germany webinar in February 2023. The PEM electrolyzer from German supplier H-Tec has an output of 1 MW and produces 450 kg of hydrogen per day. Recordings of pv magazine webinars are available at pv-magazine.com/webinars.
Those who want to reduce costs by purchasing an electrolyzer from China need to consider that exported products are usually sold at a premium of around 20% to 30%, compared to prices on the domestic market, said BloombergNEF, meaning that development and project planning costs would still be higher. It is important to consider that choosing a Chinese brand to supply the core equipment could reduce a project’s chance of receiving local subsidies and could affect financing.
So the smallest 2.5MW electrolyzer could cost anywhere from $480k for the absolute bare minimum Chinese special to $3.7M for a deluxe model installed with hardware. That’s not including storage tanks, compressors, etc.
By comparison Bloomberg reports 800kWh worth of battery cells would cost about $72k at today’s prices:
At the cell level, average prices for BEVs were just $89/kWh. This indicates that on average, cells account for 78% of the total pack price.
https://about.bnef.com/blog/lithium-ion-battery-pack-prices-hit-record-low-of-139-kwh/
So maybe round up to $75-$80k for a full on battery storage module, a battery that offers a 90-95% RT efficiency (vs 68% using hydrogen, much less if compressing/liquefying to use in a HCV), bare bones maintenance needs and a much smaller footprint.
Battolysers may have their place as a storage tech where regular batteries and hooking up to pumped hydro are not possible but again that makes them the best option of last resort. Reading their literature it is my impression their plan to make renewable hydrogen for industry with the added capability of occasionally making power when prices are high enough to justify it.
Is the bZ4X really bad? I know the site has only touched on it briefly, I believe, but I seem to recall most of the opinions being “the name is bad, but it’s acceptable as an EV, even if there are better options”.
DT’s review of the Lexus version doesn’t look too bad.
DT had to be nice because his girlfriend has already made up her mind that she’s buying one.
Also, DT’s perspective on what makes a good EV has been heavily skewed by his move to LA. He’s on record saying that a <100 mile EV with a barely usable range extender is the perfect car.
It is for him and folks like him. It may not be for you. What’s perfect for commuting in LA may be terrible for crossing the Darien gap and vice versa.
Unfortunately way too many people want to appear they are on their way to fight their way across that cayman infested jungle when the only Cayman they will fight is for a parking spot at the local mall.
If it was priced like a simple city only commuter car then sure. For starting at 5 grand more than an RX it should be at least as capable as an RX
I’ve often said the same of BMW. If a BMW costs so bloody much why can’t it be as dead reliable (or more so) as a peak Toyota Corolla?
I’ve come to understand *reasons* are involved.
They offset bad with crazy low lease rates. Under $150 a month makes one overlook a lot of bad.
Also, a lease is not forever. Whatever shit one has to out up with won’t be forever.
Yeah, with some of the lease rates, my criteria for success will be that it delivers close to the range estimate and doesn’t burn my house down.
My local Toyota dealer has 2000 down and 269 a month for a lease. So eff ’em.
It may not be based on facts and science and all, but there are probably a few people who’ve watched The History Channel or surfed Wikipedia on a rainy afternoon that may have some concerns with a large German vehicle carrying a bunch of hydrogen around
We’d use less gasoline if people bought more cars (rather than gender-affirming trucks and SUVs)
And people would likely buy more cars if they spent less on gasoline.
There was a recent study that said given recent gains in efficiency, if vehicles hadn’t gotten bigger and heavier, we could be down 30% in fuel usage. https://www.globalfueleconomy.org/news/2023/november/heaviest-ever-suvs-massively-undermine-climate-benefits-of-other-vehicle-improvements-says-new-gfei-report
We could be doing a lot better indeed
Gender-affirming trucks? That’s a hell of a shoehorn there, lol
I mean, for the many (not all, but many) people who own trucks and don’t do truck things with them and just have them because they “feel” like they might need them, or they otherwise feel socially obligated to get one to keep up with the Joneses…
Hell, I’d like to think it wasn’t a big part of it, but even in my van I can’t deny feeling some kind of “manliness” with being in such a tall, big vehicle.
From all I’ve seen all over the States, there are all types of folks that drive big-ass trucks. Even those that have little asses and pink butterfly bumper stickers.
I guess we see what we want to see.
Cars aren’t selling because they’re too damn expensive. The now significantly overdue rate cuts will only help a little. When the average price of a new car is about $10,000 less than the median household income in this country you have a big problem. You shouldn’t have to spend/finance an entire year’s worth of wages to afford a damn car.
I wouldn’t say there’s necessarily a single factor that got us here. Corporate greed played a huge role, but so did nuclear inflation, completely stagnant wages for all but the wealthiest among us, etc. Dealerships and a lack of laws to protect consumers contribute a lot as well. When dealerships can get away with only offering the most expensive trims possible and adding an additional $5,000 in bullshit markups what impetus do they have to stop?
Cars have to get cheaper. There’s no way around it…and that means MSRP, not monthly payment. Even if your interest rate is halved you’re probably only saving a couple thousand bucks in the end…which isn’t nothing, but when the product already costs $50,000 it’s ultimately just a drop in the bucket.
There’s no way around it…and that means MSRP, not monthly payment.
That right there is what I think is driving higher prices. People are all becoming accustomed to looking only at the monthly cost and so they find 10 year auto loans to buy that premium model of oversized car they want but couldn’t really afford. Monthly price is a little less than their house and they buy it.
Dealers aren’t putting markups on average joe cars anymore, so I don’t think that is the issue with overall affordability, not since COVID supply issues have gone away.
“Dealers aren’t putting markups on average joe cars anymore”
How many average joe cars are out there anymore?
IDK in total, but for Chevy I was just looking at an equinox for $29k. Also a Trax for $26k. Also, Malibus start under 30k and 35k with goodies.
We just bought a loaded Bolt EUV for $35 less than a year ago.
Those all seemed like average joe cars and none of them had any markups at all. The equinox and Bolt had money on the hood.
Those are sad divorced overworked Joe who hasn’t been promoted in 7 years and never sees his kids Joe cars.
On the new car market, non-existent. Average Joes can afford $10,000-15,000 if they are diligent about saving their money and cut corners in their budget to do so over say, a 2 year period. There are no new cars for that price. None.
The Chinese have the BYD Seagull for $11,400, but that’s not allowed here in the USA because the major automakers fear average Joes might buy that instead of signing on the dotted line for a 96 month payment plan at 11% APR on another oversized, inefficient CUV/SUV/truck blob thing whose full capabilities they will likely never need or use…
My first new car was a 1989 Mercury Tracer – without Air Conditioning – for just under $10,000 (financed for 5 years at 13%)
Inflation rate calculators tell us that car would cost $25,366 – which gets you a basic Corolla LE Hybrid today – which is not attainable for lots of folks.
Yeah – there’s protectionism – then there’s blatant denial of choice.
Because “Communists!“
Cars are more expensive because they’re not cars anymore.
They’re trucks and SUVs.
This is the real reason companies like Ford quit making cars altogether. The profit margin on crossovers and trucks is much higher, but that’s because they charge so much more for basically the same physical product (I guess there’s an extra two inches of material in the suspension).
And usually a cramped interior compared to a similarly sized car 😉
I agree. I’m in the market for a sub $10k EV that is less than 4 years old. My state has rebates that make this possible. And, anytime my SO suggests one that doesn’t meet this requirement, I say no thanks. That $200-225 per month payment is all I can stomach.
Just the thought of having to go into a dealer after they pulled all the “market adjustment” shenanigans is reason enough to kill any desire for a new vehicle.
It also doesn’t help that I drive significantly less than I used to and we’re quite happy with the cars we have.
“It also doesn’t help that I drive significantly less than I used to and we’re quite happy with the cars we have.”
This is the way.
It is not the number of cars, it is the number of drivers and the miles they drive that really matter. My wife and I have several cars but we can only each drive one at a time. My son, daughter and MIL each have 2 but again they can only drive one at a time. Yes, if we decide to drive one of the non-DDs we will use more fuel than if we take our DD HEV/PHEV/EVs. If we didn’t have those extra cars it is a good chance that our DDs wouldn’t be as efficient as the DDs were purchased because they are efficient and we don’t need a 7 pass SUV or a big pickup every day but do need something more than a small car from time to time.
The other thing I didn’t see is the impact that WFH has had on the number of miles driven. My wife is 100% WFH and my son is 95% so there are time when their “daily driver” doesn’t get driven for several days at a time.
I didn’t even have a particularly long commute, but working from home has reduced my yearly mileage from about 15k to about 7k. My car is a Sportwagen TDI, so if I assume an average around 35mpg (and that’s on the low side), I’m saving nearly 230 gallons of diesel every year.
Times how many people who now WFH at least partially and that is a really big number. Of course I’ve heard of a few people who thought WFH would last forever so they didn’t need a particularly economical car anymore or they moved out to the suburbs/country since they didn’t have to go into the city for work.
“Of course I’ve heard of a few people who thought WFH would last forever so they didn’t need a particularly economical car anymore or they moved out to the suburbs/country since they didn’t have to go into the city for work.”
WFH has absolutely decimated corporate property values, which IMO is good. What’s not good is the people taking a bath are only too eager to play dirty to bring those values back no matter how miserable it makes life for workers.
I’d love to replace my aging car with a hybrid. I just need Toyota to hurry up and fix the Grand Highlander stop sale problem, and then allow me to buy one in the colors I want, without dealer bullshit. Might be waiting a while.
Instead I periodically re-look at other cars and then decide that I’ll wait a bit longer to see if the Grand Highlander hybrid suddenly becomes easier to buy.
God, I saw BMW’s hydrogen bs on LinkedIn and had to bite my tonight not to call them out, crapping in the same pool in which I’m swimming (drowning?). It’s like that stupid biomass thing, wherein you expend loads of energy to… Compress some biomass (i.e., carbon) into smaller chunks. What? What is that supposed to do?
Same logic for hydrogen. We’ll expend loads of energy to eventually hopefully end up with vehicles we can nearly almost use with one of the most difficult to contain fuels we can imagine. Sounds good.
My view of hydrogen is that of the unknown. I’m not convinced it will work personally, but at the same time, I think we need to continue to investigate it until we know it is not the right solution. Aka, the development needs to play itself out, even if the evidence does not support it. This is my engineering take.
“I’m not convinced it will work personally, but at the same time, I think we need to continue to investigate it until we know it is not the right solution”
I’ve seen enough hydrogen shenanigans and handwaving to consider it unworkable until proven otherwise. Too many promises have been broken.
There are a few game changing technologies that COULD do so. Low pressure zeolite storage, nuclear thermal cracking of water, etc but so far those are wistful pipe dreams.
My good friend, whom supports Trump and is very much a gas guy, said his next car purchase would definitely be a hybrid of some sort. Just wanted to comment to suggest that the tide is changing on both sides of the equation. I’m not too concerned with the reason behind it, but rather the result of the decision. We are on a good trend, and I don’t see it stopping. So, I think you’re right.
Upvoted for tiny ray of hope
The bigger question is how do you reconcile that your good friend has an incredible mental illness and questionable character? It’s something I struggle with constantly.
We have our own thoughts and beliefs. I’m a staunch democrat that fully believes and wants there to be another side. We can’t have one point of view controlling the world. With that said, I also believe the Trump era will die, and the right will return back to being the proper opponents to the democrats. I would be very upset if it was just one party.
I also feel that ranked voting will become more popular, and eventually win over, but that will be very late in my life, if ever during it.
And, my buddy is a great father and leader, despite some of his ideologies. The good far outweighs the bad in this case (and in most cases, really).
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I’m all for differing opinions and diversity, but in this case it’s not two sides of a coin. I’m certainly not advocating for single party, heck, we should have more than two.
Where I struggle is that I have friends who are upright, good people, except for the fact they support a narcissistic psychopath.
I know, it’s very frustrating. It’s a crazy world we live in right now, not just in the US, either.
I just wanted to say thanks for this glimmer of hope. This whole exchange was what I needed to close my work week on.
Not to be a dick, but this sounds like more of a “you problem”, and not your friends.
“The problem is my friends, who are otherwise decent people but have this one political opinion I hate so much it overrides everything else.”
The problem is not your friends mate, it’s you.
“…support a narcissistic psychopath.”
I think I might have just been born the last time this wasn’t both options on the ballot. If you think it’s not the case again this year then ahahahaha… hoo boy, I have a fantastic real estate opportunity for you- it’s a bridge in NYC…
I have similar friends. Some go WAY back. It is tough.
We get together with a few beers. I listen to what they have to say and they listen to me. We all work to keep it calm and respectful even when something I find shocking is said (e.g. I can’t wait till I get my CC permit so I’ll be ready to draw on whatever weirdo just wandered into my church looking to start something. Yeah for real these guys want to pack firearms to church and are kinda hoping for a reason to start shooting).
They tell me why they think Trump was the greatest president ever. I -respectfully – tell them why I disagree. They say they are being repressed by large gay women of color (not quite how it was put but you get the idea) who complained about their wearing MAGA caps at work, I listen and point out how wearing a MAGA cap to work might make someone who is the hate target of MAGA policies feel repressed, maybe even threatened at work and that’s why HR got involved.
We go round and round.
Sometimes I get through, sometimes it’s me who sees things a bit differently. Mostly I come out of there shaking my head but also with a somewhat clearer idea of what is going on with half this country and I like to think they get the same. That dosen’t happen in a echo chamber.
Yes, it’s challenging (particularly in this age of relatively newly formed tech) for some to parse the difference between real life and a high school rivalry.
This all isn’t a game, but the name-calling above all else one sure is, and it’s quite popular.
I’ve said enough on this. To each their own.
“A weird election result” is a less ominous way to say “aftermath.”
Regarding Peak gasoline/oil… The Peak Oil that was spoken of in the past was very different than what we talk about today. Back in the 2000s, it was about peak oil production and production not being able to economically keep up with demand.
Of course the shift to BEVs mainly caused by Tesla changed all that. We are still going to need oil and oil-related products for the foreseeable future.
And even if Trump gets back into office, that will only delay the now-inevitable migration to BEVs. Trump and his oil-industry-owned cronies won’t be able to stop this migration that is happening in the EU, China and other places.
“BMW Is Still Doing Hydrogen Cars”… and that is a fucking stupid waste of time and money.
The Tesla effect is the same as average fuel economy going from 25 mpg to 25.5 mpg. Pretty hard to even see something this small on the chart.
This is because the Charger and Challenger are gone isn’t it?
The Charger will rise from the ashes of the gasoline powered Hellcat like the Phoenix burning brightly, especially when the batteries catch on fire.
They’ll route the battery fire and smoke out the Fratzonic exhaust in glorious spectacle.
Is the depopulation of rural america help reduce gas usage as there are less people out there driving an hour to the grocery store with their one-ton truck pulling their side by side atvs, fishing boat etc?
Interesting question. I also wonder if the graying of America means the trending older population is driving less.
We’re almost 70 and we take long road trips annually, but still rack up only 8K miles total per year. In a decade I doubt we’ll be driving even that far.
who do you think grows the kale for the kale milk you put in your venti pumpkin machhiato.
hateful comment. not funny.
Probably Brazil or something, my guy.
The various machinery of industrialized farming mainly, which maybe a two-three person team to run thousands of planted acres. And probably a few seasonal employees to come harvest the kale for a few days.
I was actually asking if the reduction of the rural gas-dependent population is showing in the data. I am sorry you were offended. I did not mean to trigger you.
I do not even know what you are talking about is that a food or something?
I thought OP poked fun a bit, but nothing hateful. Was your comment about urban dwellers drinking macchiatos meant to be hateful? (ps Cali is the top kale-producer in the US, but I don’t think kale milk is a thing.)
Yeah, someone is rather confused, and think it’s possible to milk a kale.
Maybe a koala, but not a kale.
I can only speak for a small sliver of the agricultural industry I am familiar with (and then only anecdotal), but I bet the amount of fuel used in agriculture has dropped substantially, in terms of gallons/weight of crop produced. How much this impacts “peak gasoline” is debatable, as most fuel use would be diesel.
I think the largest component omitted from your peak gasoline consumption argument is the exponential growth of Molotov cocktail use when a certain political cult loses the November election. Not sure how that will affect numbers.
only commies use Molotov cocktails. (joke)
Haha. Todays bombers probably use Molotov mocktails, anyway.
Congressional Sessions: so you can insurrect all day.
I would argue that burning gas pumps at 7/11s due to ‘mostly peaceful protests’ burn more gas. Then again, once the underground tanks are depleted and all the vehicle fires are put out, gas usage would go down. Maybe I can get some free government money to study this?
Lock him up! Damn ignorant, lying, full of shit bastard.
Orange man says he can get gas under 2 bucks a gallon?
My fat ass he can. Just more pandering bullshit to the less intelligent amongst us…Fuck him.
Have a nice weekend everyone.
I think the last 10-15 years have put a floor under expectations for efficiency.
Before 2008, it was reasonable to expect midsize cars to get 20-25 mpg, trucks and large SUVs to get 10-15 mpg, and early hybrids getting 40+ mpg were truly earthshattering.
Now, 40 mpg from a midsize car is unremarkable, truck-based SUVs have largely been replaced by CUVs that get 25 mpg or more, and even half-ton trucks get more like high teens or 20 mpg.
No matter what happens in the election, no matter what happens to mandates, I think there has been a ratcheting effect to expectations. Consumers react disproportionately strongly to gas prices. They aren’t going to accept a 12 mpg truck or a 20 mpg sedan anymore, even if gas falls to $2 a gallon or anything.
No matter the future of automotive propulsion or world politics, there will be one constant:
People really love spending as little as possible to fuel their cars.
“People really love spending as little as possible to fuel their cars.”
In my observation, a lot of people do… but not everyone. If everyone truly cared about spending as little as possible on fuel, fewer people would be buying large trucks and SUVs and the Hellcats vehicles from FCA/Stellantis would have been a sales flop.
I would simply amend the statement to say “spend as little on fuel as possible within the constraints of the vehicle type they prefer”.
If the Hellcat got 8 mpg like the 60s muscle cars it emulates, fewer people would buy them. If trucks still got 12 mpg, fewer people would buy them.
That’s the difference between the 80s and now. Back then, to really get better mileage, you needed to buy a smaller, slower car. Increasingly, that is no longer the case. People can buy what they want, and also have it get better mileage than ever before. This is unambiguously good.
If that were true there would be a lot fewer cars sold that required premium fuel.
I’ve never considered MPG in my purchase of a car. And I don’t even look at the cost of gas when I fill up, even when there are 3 stations next to each other. I just don’t care. Which I think is why I notice people’s obsession and disproportionately strong concern for gas prices. I know it is somewhat typical, but to me seems so odd.
I have no idea what mpg my Colorado gets, which now that I say it may make me the weird one. But I agree that even for me there is probably a floor of efficiency expectations. It’s just that all current offerings are above it so I don’t bother considering it.
I agree with you.
I bought one car for fuel economy purposes, when I had a very long commute and wanted something with a very low running cost.
But normally I can find 10 things to care about before fuel efficiency.
I thought I was the only one! I never even check pump price before filling up. If I buy 20 gallons, does $.03 per gallon really matter? We’re taking sixty cents here! I often toss more than that into the free change dish at the store.
Where I live there can be a dollar difference per gallon from one station to the next. That’s twenty bucks per tank down the tubes for no reason. You can have a very nice lunch for twenty bucks. Why would you give that to Exxon or Shell or Chevron for no reason?
Maybe a dollar and I would care. But that seems really unlikely. Around here there are probably 5 stations within a couple miles of everywhere. Most main intersections have 2-3 stations. I doubt anyone is getting away with $1.00 difference. Maybe in rural areas. But even then, If I had to drive 5 miles to save $1.00 per gallon I’d pass on that.
Definitely. Even with myself, one of the criteria I set when replacing my 2008 Honda Fit recently is the replacement should get at least as good fuel economy.
So that meant either getting another Fit, getting a hybrid or getting a BEV.
I really wanted a BEV, but I settled on a C-Max Energi plug in hybrid that gives me around 75% of the benefits of a BEV… and my fuel consumption has been reduced by two thirds… going from around 140L of fuel per month to about 45L. I went from filling up around 4 times a month to filling up once per month.
And I just love the fact that I went 2166km on my last tank of fuel.
In general, I’ve always bought the most fuel efficient vehicle (or close to it) that meets my needs so that if fuel prices spiked, the impact on my budget would be minimal.
And lately I also want to do it because of the whole global warming thing.
That’s pretty impressive considering the limited range of the Energi vehicles. We could typically get 600-700mi out of ours but our Escape PHEV regularly gets 1200mi or more out of a tank of gas.
Yeah I get that range from my C-Max because I make full use of the plug in capability. And the 30-40km range is just enough to do my daily commute if I take it easy. I also drive it in such a way to make the most of the regenerative braking and other fuel saving techniques.
I figured your daily commute was relatively short or you have charging at work. For us when my wife was using ours for commuting she used up most of the EV range on her drive to work and was mostly gas on the way home. However it definitely cut our fuel use way down vs the standard hybrid version of the C-Max it replaced.
I’ve always tried to get the most efficient vehicle for a task, too. I also don’t like spending money on fossil fuels. So my current vehicle is a BEV, powered mainly by nuclear and hydro. I voted with my dollars. When we need to replace our second vehicle it’ll also be with a BEV. But that car is a Toyota so it’ll run until it rusts out.
Why not? They sure accepted those 12 mpg trucks and 20 mpg cars when smaller, more efficient vehicles that would have met their needs just fine were available.
OK you’re seriously harming oil billionaires here with this crap. Those guys need more! What’s next, do you expect them to settle for an 85-foot yacht instead of a 90-foot one? Are you trying to starve their children? Won’t somebody please think of the children?
One presidential candidate says we should increase oil production, even though we are currently beyond any historical level produced by any nation. Don’t you take that presidential candidate seriously?
Excuse me, sir, those billioinaires earned every penny. They have most certainly not reaped the entirety of the incredible increase in worker productivity over the past 50 years. They have NOT.
No, in fact I saw them out there working a rig in the middle of Oklahoma. They were all sweaty!
We might have, but we also might not have with more and more companies pushing for the back to the office for working