Peak Internal Combustion Engine Sales Behind Us

Bloomberg reports that the peak number of ICE car sales per year is behind us.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...e,profoundly effect transportation and energy.

They show ICE car sales peaking in 2017. Since then, EVs have increased sales.

US automakers are heavily investing in EVs, showing that they are counting on EV sales in the future. From the cite above:

 

Here are some fun facts about the batteries.



Where do these minerals come from? Lithium is concentrated in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is the world’s dominant source of cobalt. Mineral extraction in these locales is rife with environmental degradation and human rights abuses. DRC cobalt extraction and processing paints a stark picture: by some estimates there are more than 40,000 children put to work in the DRC’s artisanal cobalt mines with little concern for occupational safety, let alone the illegality of child labour. In Chile, lithium mining, a water-intensive business, has crowded out the agricultural sector and contributed to increased soil contamination.

But environmental and human rights concerns are just the first order of risks in the underlying EV battery recipe. The necessary raw materials are disproportionately concentrated in a small set of markets, most of them emerging. And the extraction and processing of these minerals is overwhelmingly controlled by one single actor: China. Thanks to industrial policy, Chinese companies dominate, at home and abroad, the harvesting and processing of the critical raw materials necessary for EV production. They do so propped up by state subsidies, responding to Beijing’s ambitions to control the EV supply chain and wider industry. Concentrated supply and concentrated upstream consumption introduce significant EV supply chain security risks.

The DRC’s role in the cobalt supply chain neatly demonstrates the threat. It is the largest global producer of cobalt, accounting for approximately 60% of world totals. DRC cobalt resources are disproportionately invested in and mined by Chinese firms backed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In 2018, China accounted for more than 85% of the DRC’s cobalt ore and concentrate exports, by value. Chinese companies own or invest in entities that own at least 12 of the DRC’s mines with cobalt reserves. All but one of those Chinese companies is state-owned. Chinese companies also invest in the processing of the DRC’s cobalt and in integrated supply chains around it.

https://www.automotiveworld.com/art...the-hidden-costs-of-ev-battery-raw-materials/

 

Is this new or new and used together?

I ask because I wonder if its not just new ICE car sales tanking in preference for buying all the used ICE cars soldby the EV buyers. This might be more of a trend of economic downturn than any real indication of market demand. But it all depends...

 

Should be ready once the Oceans are toast .. ~ 25 years from now.

 

Interesting questions.

I'm pretty sure this is talking about new car sales only.

Also, the article shows that there was a significant downturn in new car sales in 2020. Since then, the total number of new cars sold has crept back toward past total car sales, but it isn't there yet. And, it shows the EV share of new car sales increasing, but still a small percent of total car sales.

At present, manufacturers can't meet the demand for EVs.

 

I like your "beta test" comment. I remember that being quite true for major changes in computers, too.

One of the issues with "in my garage fixable" is that electric motors really don't have anything to fix. That's one of the advantages. Maybe you can change the brake pads and fill the windshield washer fluid. But, much of what one fixes on an ICE car doesn't exist on an EV.

 

Here's another fun fact. Yeah... Lets put even more strain on an aging system by putting the cart before the horse.

West and Midwest at Risk of Summer Blackouts

 

Considering we do not have the infrastructure to support a large uptick in EV's.... This will be an interesting summer with people losing power on a regular basis..

 

Too bad the infrastructure to keep those TVs charged and running is a decade or two in the future. If that. Not to mention the environmental damage industrial level mining will cause obtaining the rare minerals and earths necessary to build them.

 

Do you have information on that? I'd be interested.

It has long been clear that our electricity infrastructure needs to be updated for several reasons. Demand is increasing. What we have is vulnerable to natural phenomena as well as attack by adversaries.

That was part of the infrastructure bill.

 

Praying the blackouts away is probably not going to work.

What we need is serious public infrastructure improvement and a real energy plan.

That's true regardless of EVs.

Getting an infrastructure bill passed has been miserably hard. Throughout the Trump administration the direction was to make this the problem of the states. The states clearly do not have the resources to address this issue. Plus, the issue needs to be nation wide - it's just not a state by state issue.

Today, we again see fierce opposition to improving infrastructure, a problem not limited to electricity.

 

Well, I posted an article regarding the coming brown outs that will be hitting the Midwest and West states this coming summer.

Here is the latest from even CNN and our current consumption.

Energy experts sound alarm about US electric grid: ‘Not designed to withstand the impacts of climate change’

We should have been expanding our nuclear capabilities rather than closing facilities. As I stated, we are surely putting the horse before the cart here.

 

EVs are here to stay, the ice engine is too old of a technology to compete with the electric vehicle. The efficiency and the maintenance is much easier than the ice.

 

Who ever said anything about praying blackouts away? I've been a proponent of clean energy for decades, i.e. nuclear which is an abundant and clean energy source.

And I agree we need to upgrade our electrical grid. It's in dire need and should have been considered 40 years ago, yet we are here and it will be another decade before we are even remotely up to speed with our grid. Adding a huge serge of EV's to a dismal system will only hurt our society.

 

Absolutely. We should be fixing our electric grid and working on a real energy plan.

I don't know the extent to which they are even considering EVs.

The number of EVs being sold today is probably not a factor as large as climate patterns, at least in most regions today. Climate affects everyone.

Planners who deny climate change are a serious risk to the populations they serve.

 

EVs are far cleaner, too.

There are studies of the health damage that ICE emissions are causing our population.

Today, 2/3 of our total oil consumption goes to transportation, where we burn it in public.

 

Hopefully once we get over half the population to be gay or trans, nobody will reproduce to create new generations to burn oil for transportation so...

problem. solved.

 

You cited an article from the presidential prayer team. It called for praying to God to protect those in the at-risk regions, among a couple other prayer focuses.

I agree that actual noticeable progress within ten years would be difficult to say the least.

Failing on infrastructure today is a disaster, regardless of EVs.

 

You need to learn about sexual orientation.

You can't change someone's sexual orientation. It's been tried.

 

If 20 percent of our population is now gay or trans or both...we are a failed species.

 

This I agree with. This is also why China is charging to the moon. Prior administrations have made attempts to get us on H3 as an alternate energy source, yet other administrations continued to shoot it down. Just as China did with the lithium & cobalt supplies. We seem to be the hare in this race.

 

The trades offs, huh. Lots of us have been pointing this out for a while. Conflict minerals seem to be the crux of the progressive ploy. It's the recognition that we have to love China because, well, they have the minerals we need for so many things. And the unfortunate truth here is that these minerals come from places where their extraction is both brutal, dangerous, and astonishingly ignored by the proponents of these kinds of technology. No one needs to know kids in the DRC die so you can have a cell phone. That would just be inconvenient, and cut into the market share of those tech folks who own the DNC these days.. And of course, those folks aren't worth mentioning, cause the cause of "green" and the revolution of socialism can't be bothered with the horror that is the lives of those slaves who supply their raw materials...

 

Nope... not being groomed at all..

Drag queens perform at ‘Drag the Kids to Pride’ event, children also take the stage as parents protest outside

 

The interesting question is the supply of said EVs in a time when ICE supply was so limited. The dream of every car being electrified is dead until life and durability of the batteries actually can compete with gas/diesel vehicles. The "dream" is still just that unless you can produce more range and less waiting on recharging.