Yeah, but there’s pretty much no way to measure that with massive interconnected global supply chains.
You can say less oil is being used in this specific fixed depth trace of an EV production line but at the end of the day it doesn’t mean anything if the net effect is billions of cars worth of ICE scrap and new-car consumption along with the impact of retrofitting every gas station, parking lot, and garage with chargers just for an unrelated industry (like freight shipping) to see dollar signs and take advantage of the inevitable price drop and burn all the oil anyway.
The only measure that can means anything is worldwide consumption. This is not an argument for or against EVs but I think the parent is right at where the goal posts need to be set. Around 45% of US oil consumption is gasoline for vehicles so I do believe that it could make a real dent but I won’t be popping any champagne until the numbers go down and stay down.
You can say less oil is being used in this specific fixed depth trace of an EV production line but at the end of the day it doesn’t mean anything if the net effect is billions of cars worth of ICE scrap and new-car consumption along with the impact of retrofitting every gas station, parking lot, and garage with chargers just for an unrelated industry (like freight shipping) to see dollar signs and take advantage of the inevitable price drop and burn all the oil anyway.
The only measure that can means anything is worldwide consumption. This is not an argument for or against EVs but I think the parent is right at where the goal posts need to be set. Around 45% of US oil consumption is gasoline for vehicles so I do believe that it could make a real dent but I won’t be popping any champagne until the numbers go down and stay down.