Electric Vehicles are revolutionizing the transportation landscape and we all are ready to accept the change.
It is time we understand how big the difference is going to be for the future of gasoline vs electric bikes. Is the change going to be slow or fast is something we need to wait and see.
While Tesla is already gearing up to set up its Gigafactory in China, the Indian government is aiming to make India an Electric Vehicle manufacturing hub.
With already so many electric vehicles replacing gasoline-run vehicles, there are discussions everywhere about how long the oil industries can survive.
When we look at the pace at which the transition to EVs can happen, we can without any scope for doubt, say that electric vehicles and conventional gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles will co-exist for a long time.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), there are about 2 million electric vehicles on road currently.
By 2025, an estimated 50 million electric vehicles would be in operation and by 2040, the count is expected to reach 300 million.
This increase in the number of electric vehicles over the next few years would only result in a 2% decline in global oil demand.
The demand for oil in sectors like heavy industry, petrochemical industry, aviation, and heavy transport keep expanding over time.
The efforts towards making traditional gasoline- and diesel-powered engines much more energy efficient are increasing significantly.
The conventional automobiles are now being made into hybrid electric-gasoline vehicles that give higher mileage and are less polluting.
Electric Vehicles undoubtedly will dominate the transportation industry in urban cities in the coming years. Electric Vehicles manufacturers have been working incessantly on eliminating the drawbacks related to battery life and efficiency.
Though it can benefit the users in urban cities for local commute, reaching the rural areas that require long driving range continues to be a challenge.
According to an article by Forbes, in developing countries like India, there are only 4 cars per every 100 people.
Owing to the rapid shift in the living standards of the lower and middle-class families in these countries with emerging markets, there are high chances that there would be a significant number of people who would opt to own a car in the coming years.
With the current high prices of electric vehicles, a major chunk of people in countries like India is still opting gasoline-run vehicles.
The current problems like high prices and insufficient charging stations for Electric Vehicles are only increasing the demand for the conventional gasoline-run vehicles hence keep the demand for gasoline and diesel high as always.
Hence we are not surprised when statistics show that 12 billion liters of petrol and 27 billion liters of a diesel get consumed every day in India.
With emerging technologies playing a vital role and the constant growth in the global population, and the rise of the middle-class, the oil and gas industry will continue to thrive.
The heavy transportation industry would still continue to run on gasoline owing to the fact that these vehicles are used in local distance traveling and import-export activities.
Electric vehicles coming into this space would take much longer making gasoline an obvious choice.
As a result of the growing popularity of renewable resources and the efforts towards adopting carbon-neutral technologies like electric vehicles and renewable energy will gradually reduce the demand for oil and gas.
Even if we assume that all the vehicles go electric, the Oil Industry will not be dead in a day.
The decline in the demand for gasoline and diesel for vehicles is inevitable but the demand for petroleum will continue as it serves as a raw material for many chemical products, including pharmaceuticals, plastics, fertilizers, synthetic fragrances, solvents, etc.
Gasoline and diesel are used in gas turbines to produce electricity which is among the major sources of industrial power.
Industry experts are predicting that CNG and GTL technology would play an important role in the future as they require lesser infrastructure set-up costs compared to an all-out switch to electric vehicles.
Many uses of oil and gas will still continue to exist. To replace petrochemical and lubricants with biologically-derived equivalents would require a lot of farmland and processing methods.
The kind of uses that these fossil fuels have would have a very minimal environmental impact. To meet these needs of various industries, the extraction of low-level oil and ga would continue for hundreds of years.