Maybe not a big surprise since the Chinese government is heavily favoring EVs and PHEVs over gas cars. In Beijing, for instance, they are limiting new registrations to 100,000, but only 30,000 of those are available to ICE cars. And it’s done by lottery, so there’s no guarantee (corruption aside) that you can buy a car and have it legally registered to be on the road.
China is the second highest oil consuming country with India a far distant third. Their gas consumption is expected to be flat this year.
Might they now be at (or very near) peak oil consumption? Half of the oil they consume is in the form of gas/diesel and even more if one includes vehicle lubricants.
All transportation will go electric as costs continue to come down.
Its just a matter of time. No exceptions.
EVs are just better in efficiency, environment, pollution, and driving characteristics.
What are your expectations/timelines for something like flying?
DB2
CATL has developed a battery with 500 watts per kilogram. Expect mass production as soon as 2026 maybe as late as 2030. CATL has a very good track record of bringing innovation into production. However, unless one can order it off Amazon it really doesn’t exist.
Still even 500 watts per kilogram is over 4 pounds per kilowatt hour. A typical Cessna 172, the most produced light plane ever has an engine rated about 180 horse power. BUT typically as the engine is typically installed in the aircraft it rarely produces more than 130 horse power. Then only at sea level on a dry day at 70 degrees or so. That 130 hp is about 100 kw. The typical airplane cruises at 70 percent power. This means a typical Cessna 172 would need about 70 kilowatts to cruise at it’s designed cruise speed. (Actually some decent engineering could probably get that down quite a bit as a lot of compromises are built into the aircraft to accommodate the limitations if the internal combustion engine.) So as the Cessna is generally built to have 4 hour cruise range, it would need at least 280 kilowatts of energy storage. This would work out to over 1000 pounds. The current empty weight of a Cessna 172 is roughly 1700 pounds. The fuel capacity is 40 gallons which weighs about 240 pounds. So assuming the battery needed would weigh about 1000 pounds it would add 750 pounds to the empty weight of the aircraft. But the electric motor weighs a lot less than a comparable gasoline aircraft engine so there can be some weight swapping there.
In any case, 500 watt hours per kilogram is probably not a measurement at the pack level so the pack might weigh a lot more than 1000 pounds.
In the end, we probably need to start seeing numbers in the 750 to 1000 watt per kilogram range to get to comparable electric aviation and those numbers are no where on the horizon. Not even in made up pipe dreams in press releases. And 750 to 1000 watt per kilogram would be marginal.
Cheers
Qazulight
Elon Musk is holding himself back in the US.
The Captain’s Tesla daily count in Porto today broke the old record of 15 by 47%. The new record today is 22 sightings.
Anecdotal statistics are deceptive. Cow milk mozzarella cheese at the Continente supermarket chain rose by 36% overnight, from 0.99€ to 1.35€, but is was steady at Mercadona at 1.00€. Takeout pork ribs (Yummy!) at Mercadona have increased in price, my best estimate is around 50% in three or four years. Gas prices have dropped. The most expensive fuel has dropped from over 2€ a liter (0.2642 US gallons) to just over 1.50€, a 25% drop.
The New Energy car market is terribly distorted by government meddling, I mean policy. Germany just cut EV subsidies. Surprise, EV sales dropped!
If you invest in Tesla based on car sales, margins, and profits you are going to suffer serious whiplash.
The Captain