ExxonMobil: 45% EVs by 2040?
Posted December 9, 2011 at 1:29 pm 
Filed in: This week, oil and gas giant ExxonMobil released their 2012 energy outlook, The Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040. It’s an extensive document, projecting a 30 percent global increase in energy demand over the coming three decades, with fossil fuels remaining the world’s primary energy sources, and natural gas usurping coal’s second place position behind oil. Combined, oil and gas will comprise 60 percent of global energy demand, a slight uptick from today’s 55 percent, and with increasing supplies drawn from unconventional resources (unconventional gas will surge from 10 percent to 30 percent of market share). The report suggests that growth in demand will come almost entirely from non-OECD countries, as consumption levels plateau or decline in North America and Europe.
Source: ExxonMobil 2012
The largest oil major is, understandably, bullish on long term fossil fuel supplies, yet these projections underscore the urgency of the United States developing its own petroleum resources while emerging economies continue to squeeze the global oil market. If anything, this graph may understate the demand growth, due to the vast increases in light-duty vehicles directly impacting demand for liquid fuels. In 2010 there were just over 200 million vehicles in non-OECD countries, a number expected to more than quadruple to 900 million in 2030; it is unclear if ExxonMobil expects a similar surge, or if their report accounted for these vehicles.
Another transformative change anticipated by the report is a massive shift away from conventional internal combustion engines to hybrids and other plug in electrics, with these vehicles comprising almost 50 percent of the light-duty fleet.
ExxonMobil 2012
As Steve Levine noted in his must-read blog on oil geopolitics, Oil and Glory, most of this growth is expected to come from hybrid vehicles, with the important qualifier, “faster-than-expected drops in battery costs would likely make electric cars more of a factor through 2040 than we expect them to be.” Levine notes:
“Doing much hanging around with battery scientists in recent months, I have to say that I am relieved to see this caveat. Common sense tells you it is highly improbable that scientists will make almost no technological advance in battery technology in a three-decade period. That some 20 nations including the U.S., Japan, South Korea, China, Israel and Germany are engaged in a race to make advanced battery breakthroughs suggests better progress.”
This assessment is spot-on. We’re thrilled to see that ExxonMobil is giving advanced technology vehicles their due, and even more excited to see a world in which every other car in the road is a hybrid/electric.
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