Car manufacturers have plenty of ways to improve gasoline engines (Image: Herwig Prammer/Reuters)
PEOPLE have fretted about when the world’s oil will start to run out ever since M. King Hubbert came up with the idea of “peak oil” back in the 1950s. The American geologist, who worked for Shell, pointed out that we are destined to reach a moment when oil production stops rising and goes into terminal decline. With it, the era of cheap oil that fuelled the post-war economic boom would end. The idea still provokes great debate, and many forecasters are predicting that global production will peak by the end of this decade as supplies dwindle.
Now there is a different view. A small number of analysts forecast that oil production will start to fall by 2020 – not because we are running out, but because we just won’t need it.
They argue that the world will wean itself off oil voluntarily, through major advances in vehicle technology. Peak oil will not be a supply-side phenomenon brought about by shrinking reserves, but by motorists buying electric cars and conventional cars with highly efficient engines. If they are right, this shift will start the long-term transition from oil to electricity as the main transport fuel, reduce economies’ vulnerability to spikes in the oil price, and cap greenhouse emissions from crude oil.
It is a bold prediction. Could it be right?
Judging by motor industry investment and the number of new models being launched, the prospects for the electric car are brightening. All the major manufacturers are producing cars with varying degrees of electrification, ranging from hybrids, such as…
