The EV Tipping Points to Zero Fossil Fuel Consumption

Initial sales of EV were for climate, then sales spiked because EV’s became more fun to drive than BMW’s, Volvo’s etc. The next market jump will be for commercial use cases to save money, followed by low cost EVs for consumers.

City, County and State government vehicle fleet managers should consider reviewing their use cases for significant cost savings and consider consolidating any unique configurations and features state wide and forwarding their wish list to industry. The savings can be on the order of 50% for capital, fuel and maintenance where vehicles are used 8 hours a day.

Consumers should consider the implications of gas and diesel vehicles becoming a small percentage of vehicles.

The estimates below are from web searches plus some educated guesses on my part. Feel free to search the internet for the latest information as data favoring EVs over fossil fuel grows stronger every day.

Many commercial use cases in cities and towns share a common set of attributes. Miles driven per day 60 to 125. Number of trips over 150 miles, near zero. These cases can all use LFP batteries that offer nearly 1,000,000 miles expected life. And most can be charged by L2 chargers overnight in 4 hours (a 220 volt circuit), no need for public charging infrastructure. EV drive trains have demonstrated 1,000,000 mile expected life in todays production EVs. There is growing interest in buying EVs for commercial use cases to save significant fleet cost in capital, fuel and maintenance.

Some examples:

US Post Office delivery vans with 8 MPG gas switch to 60 MPG EV equivalent. The vans drive about 2 times the miles driven of the average consumer and the gas version of the van burns about 6 times the gas burned by the average consumer use case.

Last mile Delivery vans capable of 10,000 pounds load are similar in MPG and miles driven to the post office vans, the total on the order of 500,000 vehicles.

Heavy trucks using diesel engines consume 25% of US fossil fuel (about 4 million trucks). They run 8 plus hours a day and of course the heavy loads consume a lot of diesel. The diesel engines are expensive but have a long life, about 1,000,000 miles, typically a 30 year life.

In the delivery van cases of post office, amazon, Fed Ex , EVs offer 1,000,000 miles expected life for the drive train, can use batteries with up to 1,000,000 mile life, offer lower fuel cost and lower maintenance costs. The current high energy density battery offered for Heavy trucks does not cover all the use cases but is already winning some market share in last mile delivery by Semi trucks and Large Delivery Trucks because of lower fuel and maintenance cost. The life cycle (years in service) is slightly less then optimal for Heavy trucks needing higher energy density batteries with long life. However, the energy density of batteries with 1,000,000 miles life and high energy density is already proven in the lab, perhaps in production by 2030 if the development pace follows recent advances in battery cost and performance. For heavy trucks there is a significant need for fast charging infrastructure which will take time to build out.

Police cars run 8 to 12 hours a day, never shut off the engine during use, travel about 100 to 125 miles a day and typically average 30 MPG. A Tesla Model Y MPG equivalent offers 131 MPG city. There are 266,000 police cars in the US. Because police cars run their engines continuously 8 to 12 hours a day, the life of the car is short, 3 to 4 years. When stopped, the EV engine is off, the battery can continue to power the radio, computer etc. but there is no wear on the engine.

Uber and Lyft drivers in the US number about 1.7 million for ride share. The average miles driven per day 100, the life of the car about 4 years. The constant stop and go travel is rough on the engine and transmission. The EV MPG equivalent is on the order of 130 MPG. The gas cars MPG vary but 25 MPG is likely the average so EV energy cost is about 1/5 the cost of gas. The Uber and Lyft use case pollution is about 4 times the average consumer use case in terms of fuel burned.

For both police cars and Uber/Lyft cases, the average life of the gas car is 4 years. Both cases can use LFP batteries with about 1,000,000 miles expected life and EV drive trains with an expected life of 1,000,000 miles. Assume the EV has 16 year life, both cases would buy one EV instead of 4 gas vehicles. Of course, some refurbishment cost during years 5 to 16 is likely but capital costs will be much lower with EV, gas vehicles exceed 2.6 times the EV capital cost, even if the initial price difference is 50% higher for the new EV. The fuel savings plus capital cost saving over 16 years about $150,000. US savings for both cases about $294 Billion every 16 years.

The more common work truck and light van EVs are already less expensive to own then diesel and are expected to be less expensive than gas by 2024. But costs for light vehicle use are only slightly better in 2023. However, this won’t be the case for long. The expected price of batteries is predicted to fall by at least 75% within 5 to 10 years. So about $11,000 savings. Add in tax credit of $7500 so about $18,500 lower in cost than gas or diesel within 10 years.

Some projections:

The improved infrastructure for EV charging over 10 years plus lower EV prices due to improved cost of batteries, improved battery life and range and lower prices due EV production learning curve and growing consumer acceptance of EV over gas suggests that, by 2033, 100% of new car sales switches from gas to EV. If EV production ramps to 18 million units or 6% of the total 280 million units a year, gas and diesel consumption will drop by at least 6% a year. However, based on use cases where vehicles are used more than the average and the cost of capital, fuel and maintenance is much higher for gas vehicles, the gas consumption will fall faster than 6% a year.

20% of light vehicles account for 50% of light vehicles fossil fuel consumption. For many of those use cases the life cycle savings are compelling today and will be more compelling every year.

Heavy trucks account for 25% of fossil fuel consumption overall, assume 10% convert to EV in the next 10 years, so fossil fuel consumption by heavy trucks drops by 2.5%. My guess is the light vehicles replaced by EVs drop fossil fuel consumption by more than 4% over the next 10 years.

So 6.5% drop 2023 to 2033 and then at least a 6% drop every year following year 10.

Year 11- 12.5% drop from 2023

Year 12- 19% drop from 2023

Year 13- 25% drop from 2023

In 2036, the oil industry might see a 25% drop from todays consumption levels. What happens to gas and diesel production and prices? At some point the refinery efficiency will drop to a point that some refineries will close. Gas and diesel will become more expensive and it is possible there will be short falls in production. My assumption is all the commercial light vehicle and heavy truck applications will be demanding more EV production. The rate of fossil fuel consumption will fall at a faster pace.

At some point, commercial applications will retire gas and diesel vehicles before their end of expected life. This will encourage an additional pace for the reduction of fossil fuel in the US, EU and the rest of the world.

As to EV’s that are purchased by consumers who drive less than 14,000 miles a year, their purchase accomplishes two important roles. First the profits ensure continued R and D for continuous improvement in price and performance of EV’s. Second, as the EV enters the used car market, it will offer a much longer life than gas vehicles. So the production of vehicles will eventually reach a lower level than gas vehicles. So, the CO2 emissions to produce an EV pool that has twice the life of the former gas pool of vehicles will be less. Decades of fossil fuel replaced with electric energy, reducing fuel cost and pollution and fewer vehicles need to be produced for the pool of used vehicles, a win-win-win.

There are battery chemistries demonstrated in the lab today with a 4 times improvement in energy density today. So, 300 mile range jumps to 1200 miles range. Heavy trucks use case is 100% covered. The battery cost for today’s 300 miles range drops by 75%.

When will the burning fossil fuel in light vehicles and heavy trucks reach zero?