LONDON: Oil companies may be facing uncertainty as the coronavirus triggers a collapse in demand for their products, but auto makers are betting the crisis will help to accelerate an electric future.
With economies reeling from lockdowns to curb the virus, the sharpest plunge in oil prices in two decades has slashed the cost of filling up a tank of gas, eroding some of the incentive to make the switch to cleaner fuels.
Looking ahead, cuts in capital spending forced on energy companies as their revenues crumble could tighten supply enough to cause a spike in oil prices, making electric vehicles more attractive just as automakers ramp up production, analysts say.
“We think this will lead to a tipping point, accelerating the switch to electric vehicles in many more countries around 2023-24,” said Per Magnus Nysveen, senior partner at Rystad Energy, a consultancy in Oslo. “We will start to see that this starts to dig into global oil demand in a very significant way.”
According to a Reuters analysis of 27 automakers compiled in partnership with Constellation Research & Technology, most companies apart from Elon Musk’s Tesla and China’s BYD are still in the early stages of transitioning to EVs, which make up a fraction of global sales.
With mid-sized to large petroleum-fueled SUVs and trucks driving much of the recent growth in the auto sector, many companies are banking on these high-emitting gas-guzzlers to drive their near-term performance.
Nevertheless, with China’s BAIC and German rivals Volkswagen and Daimler pursuing some of the industry’s most ambitious decarbonization targets, investors are increasingly using a company’s EV prospects as a proxy for future success. “All the growth in transportation is being eaten by electricity,” said Harry Benham, chairman of Ember-Climate, a British energy transition think-tank. “Oil and gas companies have got no ability to defeat electricity as a transport fuel.”
With fuel for road transport accounting for about half of all oil demand, the possibility of a faster-than-expected switch to EVs in the wake of the pandemic is one of the main reasons some forecasts for a peak have been brought forward.
Global oil demand hit a record of just over 100 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2019. Rystad now sees demand topping out at 106.5 million-107 million bpd in 2027-2028. The consultancy had previously forecast a marginally higher peak in 2030.
Although the oil industry has defied numerous attempts to call “peak oil” in the past, that the International Energy Agency projects demand will plunge by a record 8.6 million bpd this year has reignited the debate.
Though as yet a minority view, some believe that the pandemic is reshaping patterns of work, aviation and commuting so profoundly that oil demand might never return to 2019 levels — a potential boost to hopes of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.
“It’s inconceivable that all that demand for oil comes back in one go, so the real question is how much of that is lost permanently,” said Mark Lewis, head of sustainability research at BNP Paribas Asset Management.
Underscoring the changing economics of transport, Tesla plans to introduce a new low-cost, long-life battery in its Model 3 sedan in China that it expects to bring the cost of EVs in line with gasoline models.
Despite such potential breakthroughs, the Constellation data shows that automakers still have a long way to go to align themselves with climate goals enshrined in the 2015 Paris Agreement, with Ford and Fiat Chrysler among the biggest laggards.
Volkswagen has announced some of the most aggressive long-term plans to decarbonize its fleet, but the company still has to prove it can build EVs at scale, and has led the field in ramping up sales of mid- and large SUVs, the data shows.
Although the public decarbonization targets of Japan’s Toyota are only a little bolder than the industry average, the company’s proven capacity to build hybrids may bode well for its EV ambitions, the data suggests.
