As EV demand rises, here’s what the future holds for gas cars
As EV demand rises, this is what the future will look like for gas cars, according to new data analysis by RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute).
RMI, who worked in partnership with the Bezos Earth Fund, writes in a report released today called “X-change: Cars, The end of the ICE age” that the market share of internal combustion engine (ICE) cars is going to fall to a level of 14-38% of sales by 2030.
RMI says that gas car sales peaked in 2017 and have been falling at 5% a year since then. By the end of this decade, gas car sales will fall to between 14 million and 38 million cars a year.
But it’s not just about just new gas car purchases – it’s also about what happens to gas cars already on the road, because the gas car stock is a function of gross sales and the scrappage of existing cars.
RMI assumes the life of a car to be around 15 years. Over the past decade, RMI writes, the number of gas cars scrapped annually has been between 40 and 50 million. But using historical data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), RMI estimates that the gas car scrappage rate will climb to between 60 and 70 million annually by 2030, based on the number of gas car sales 15 years ago, which was at around 80 million. (Scrappage is another recycling challenge that is going to need to be urgently addressed.)
RMI gives the example that in 2022, there were sales of 64 million gas cars and scrappage of 42 million. So the net growth was 22 million. But by 2025, more gas cars will be scrapped than sold, meaning the overall fleet of gas cars will peak that year, and then will be in freefall by 2030. RMI’s research shows that by 2030, the gas fleet is likely to be falling at a rate of 40 to 70 million per year, or 3-7%.
And, the researchers say, since gas cars account for around 25% of global oil demand (and made up more than 33% of oil demand growth between 2010 and 2019), demand for oil is also going to freefall in the future, thanks to EV adoption and efficiency.
And here’s the exciting bombshell from this report: By the 2040s, RMI says that the oil demand from the car sector will fall to zero.
Kingsmill Bond, senior principal at RMI, said:
Electric vehicles are on track to dominate global car sales by 2030, signaling the endgame for the largest sector of oil demand.
And where cars lead, so the rest of transport will follow: Exponential change is spreading to two-wheelers across the Global South and to trucks in China.
This is good news for cutting emissions and improving public health. But it also shifts money from the hands of petrostates into the pockets of consumers.
Read more: Heat pumps are more efficient than oil and gas heating in subzero temps – Oxford study
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HOUSTON — Amazon, Alphabet’s Google and Meta Platforms on Wednesday said they support efforts to at least triple nuclear energy worldwide by 2050.
The tech companies signed a pledge first adopted in December 2023 by more than 20 countries, including the U.S., at the U.N. Climate Change Conference. Financial institutions including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley backed the pledge last year.
The pledge is nonbinding, but highlights the growing support for expanding nuclear power among leading industries, finance and governments.
Amazon, Google and Meta are increasingly important drivers of energy demand in the U.S. as they build out artificial intelligence centers. The tech sector is turning to nuclear power after concluding that renewables alone won’t provide enough reliable power for their energy needs.
Amazon and Google announced investments last October to help launch small nuclear reactors, technology still under development that the industry hopes will reduce the cost and timelines that have plagued new reactor builds in the U.S.
Meta issued a call in December for nuclear developers to submit proposals to help the tech company add up to four gigawatts of new nuclear in the U.S.
The pledge signed Wednesday was led by the World Nuclear Association on the sidelines of the CERAWeek by S&P Global energy conference in Houston.
Environment
French industrial giant Schneider Electric hails the significance of China’s ‘DeepSeek moment’
China’s so-called “DeepSeek moment” is likely to be good news in the global race to develop artificial intelligence models that can carry out more complex tasks, according to Jean-Pascal Tricoire, chairman of French power-equipment maker Schneider Electric.
“I actually think its good news. We need AI at every level,” Tricoire told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick at CONVERGE LIVE in Singapore on Wednesday.
“We need AI to optimize your whole enterprise at all levels, so that you can buy better, consume better, decide better, source better. To do all of this, we need models to operate on a smaller scale,” he added.
Tricoire said the emergence of Chinese AI app DeepSeek showed that AI models can achieve the same results as some of its more established U.S. rivals, but with a much smaller model.
It “will actually spread AI at all levels of the architecture much faster,” Tricoire said. He added that DeepSeek’s blockbuster R1 model would be “fantastic” for improving safety and reliability when deploying AI on dangerous equipment.
“The spread of AI models at every level of what we need is actually very good news,” Tricoire said.
His comments come shortly after Schneider Electric reported record sales and profits in 2024.
The company, which has been a big beneficiary of the artificial intelligence trend, raised its 2025 profit margin following robust fourth-quarter demand for data centers.
Shares of Schneider Electric rose 33% in 2024, following a 39% upswing in 2023. The Paris-listed stock is down around 7% year to date, however, with China’s recent AI push sparking concerns about AI investment and tech sector returns.
Data centers, which consume an ever-increasing amount of energy, represent a key piece of infrastructure behind modern-day cloud computing and AI applications.
— CNBC’s Ganesh Rao contributed to this report.
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