The combustion engine has already peaked
Five charts to start your day
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CHART 1 • The combustion engine has already peaked
The combustion engine may not end with a ban or a dramatic last model rolling off the line. It may end first as a peak. According to the IEA data used by Our World in Data, global sales of non-electric cars topped out in 2017 and have not recovered that level.
That is a more important milestone than it sounds. Electric vehicles are not merely adding volume to the car market. They are beginning to replace the old engine in the annual flow of new sales.
The caveat is stock versus flow. Hundreds of millions of petrol and diesel cars will remain on the road for years, and heavy transport is a different problem. Still, for passenger cars, the argument has shifted from if to how fast.
Source: Our World in Data, International Energy Agency
Energy transitions are never as clean as their slogans. A technology can peak before it disappears, and a declining system can remain profitable, political and powerful for decades.
I’ve got four more charts on electric car sales, China’s electricity demand, US oil exports and Aramco’s profits. Together they show why the transition is real, but not simple.
