Will Electric Cars Kill The Oil Industry
The rising electric vehicle movement is being stifled by the oil industry.
Will Electric Cars Kill The Oil Industry: Exxon Mobil and the Koch family-backed organisations are funding state-by-state campaigns to thwart utilities’ plans to erect charging stations across the US. Environmentalists compare the conflict to the “Who Killed the Electric Car?” scuffles of the 1990s, which contributed to the demise of a previous generation of battery-powered cars.
According to utility commission documents , organisations with ties to the oil industry have fought the plans of electric firms in ten states through regulatory and lobbying efforts. In order to raise the demand for electricity, utilities are battling to get permission to establish charging networks in places like shopping malls and rest areas over more than half the country.
Electric Cars Kill The Oil Industry : According to Gina Coplon-Newfield
Director of the Sierra Club’s electric vehicle campaign, “fossil fuel interests dominate 90% of the transportation fuel market in the U.S. and are genuinely feeling threatened.”
Various trade associations and industry-funded political organisations representing all facets of the petroleum business are taking part in the offensive.
As part of a “Freedom to Drive” alliance made up of auto dealers and oil companies, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, a trade association for gasoline producers, filed comments opposing Kansas and Missouri’s charging proposals as well as Colorado’s new zero-emission car rule. They argue that incentives and charging stations shouldn’t be covered by the average consumer because they only benefit those who can afford luxury vehicles like Teslas.
Electric Cars Kill The Oil Industry : According to Derrick Morgan,
Senior vice president at the gasoline and petrochemicals company, said: “We feel like we’re on the side of the angels here in terms of wanting this to be a free market and not wanting those who don’t utilize the service to have to pay for service.”
National Grid’s plans to install electric vehicle charging stations
The American Petroleum Institute joined forces with Americans for Prosperity, a political organization supported by the Koch oil empire, to block utilities’ investments in electric vehicles in Illinois and Iowa. In Minnesota, the owner of a sizable refinery joined forces with other business groups to fight utility billing and shared mobility programmes.
In Massachusetts, API joined forces with gas station owners and retailers to fight National Grid’s plans to install electric vehicle charging stations. Along with AFP, the Western States Petroleum Association has opposed Arizona utility charge plans and California electric vehicle legislation. Additionally, API joined forces with the owners of convenience stores, petrol stations, and truck stops in Maryland to block utilities’ plans for electric vehicles.
The utility billing measures have drawn widespread criticism, not just from oil interests. Because their captive consumers will have to pay for the investments, utilities, which operate as monopolies, are allegedly leveraging the infrastructure for electric vehicles to bolster their balance sheets, according to consumer advocates and some independent charging companies.
Utilities claim that the upfront cost of charging stations is low for consumers and that as the adoption of electric vehicles rises, customers’ costs may actually go down as the expense of the power grid infrastructure is spread over a larger base of power consumption. Four utilities in Maryland suggested the construction of 24,000 chargers last year at a cost of 25 to 42 cents per ratepayer each month.
The plan from three Exelon utilities and one controlled by FirstEnergy would have been the largest utility programme outside of California, with power companies placing chargers in residences, apartment complexes, offices, and public spaces like supermarkets or rest areas.
The oil industry hasn’t had much luck thwarting utility plans thus far. Although last year’s withdrawal of a billing plan by a Kansas utility was applauded by the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, experts claim that most times when regulators reduce utility plans, they don’t do so in response to the oil industry’s pleadings.
Electric Cars Kill The Oil Industry : According to Samantha Houston,
A clean car analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, stated that the main effect of oil lobbying she has observed so far has been some delays. Nevertheless, Houston believes that the battle will continue. “I wouldn’t attribute changes to electric car programmes to API, but they are definitely trying to make things more complicated with their interventions,” said the author.
Regulators in Maryland reduced the utility’s proposed installation of 5,000 chargers at public locations during the following few years. But the state’s top regulator claimed that the oil industry’s arguments were weak and that the decision was mostly based on worries about prices and competition.
Electric Cars Kill The Oil Industry : According to Jason Stanek,
Chairman of the Maryland Public Service Commission, “I personally did not believe those arguments to be compelling.” There is undoubtedly a drive toward electrifying transportation, and the petroleum sector is pushing for these localised issues in order to maintain its market position.
However, despite the growing threat posed by electric vehicles, Stanek, Houston, and others anticipate that oil giants will continue their fight.
Houston predicted that the struggle will probably last for some time. Internal combustion engines continue to hold a sizable portion of the market, and the oil and gas sector doesn’t want that to change.
Electric Cars Kill The Oil Industry : According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance
There is growing skepticism about the market viability of gasoline-powered cars. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, electric vehicles might account for up to 40% of the U.S. passenger vehicle fleet and 60% of sales by 2040, up from 2% of sales at the time. This would eliminate the need for more than 3 million barrels of oil per day, or more than 20% of the present amount used for transportation.
Additionally, oil companies are lobbying Congress to reject electric vehicle tax credits, boost the fees that 26 states currently charge for their use, and support the Trump administration’s plan to roll back Obama-era fuel efficiency rules. One of the key corporate sectors supporting President Donald Trump on the rollback is the auto industry.
The emergence of the electric vehicle poses an existential threat to the global oil industry, which is the driving force behind the lobbying campaign.
See This : When Will the Cost of Electric Vehicles Decrease? 3 Strong Key Points
Electric Cars Kill The Oil Industry : According to David Doherty
By 2040 or earlier, gasoline-powered vehicles are to be phased out thanks to electric vehicle laws in China and many European Union countries. According to David Doherty, an oil specialist at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, this will keep bringing battery prices down in the upcoming years.
And that, according to him, should lead to a tipping point in the middle of the following decade as passenger electric vehicles become generally competitive with those fueled by gasoline. As a result, the oil sector will have only a short window of time to slow the trend.
Then, according to Doherty, “we’ll see electric vehicles really ramp up as a percentage of sales.”
The largest obstacle to wider acceptance of electric vehicles—whose competitiveness is rising—is the deployment of enough chargers to support their expansion. That, according to Stanek, helps to explain the oil industry’s stepped-up lobbying effort.
Electric Cars Kill The Oil Industry : According to Larry Hogan
Before buying a electric vehicle, people “need to actually see electric vehicle charging stations and know that they exist,” according to the Maryland regulator. The regulator works in a state where Republican Governor Larry Hogan wants to see 300,000 electric vehicles in 2025, up from less than 20,000 at the moment. As more drivers notice that public charging stations are appearing in libraries, gas stations, and on the side of the road, it will cause people to reconsider buying a new car.
Both parties are secretive about the conflict in public. Supporters of oil downplay the danger posed by electric vehicles by stating that they still aren’t as functional as automobiles with internal combustion engines and by pointing out that many analysts anticipate that the world’s demand for fossil fuels will remain high by the middle of the century.
Electric Cars Kill The Oil Industry : According to Morgan
The internal combustion engine, according to Morgan, “is genuinely going to be there for a long time,” barring a significant advance in the field of electric car technology, which hasn’t happened yet and doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon. Internal combustion engines, in my opinion, will continue to be fiercely competitive for decades to come.
The Edison Electric Institute, a significant utility trade group, asserts that it is still too early to predict whether electric and gasoline-powered cars will collide.
Electric Cars Kill The Oil Industry : According to Becky Knox
Senior director at EEI, stated, “I don’t think it’s us and them. “[Electric vehicles] are still relatively new on the market at this time. If that is on a collision path, I’m not sure.
Even still, industry veterans claim that utilities’ advocacy for electric vehicles has increased over the past few years. In contrast to the mid-decade rarity of utility electric car charging outside of California, charging programmes have already been proposed by more than 50 utilities throughout 25 states and the District of Columbia.
At meetings of corporate leaders and conservative lawmakers, EEI and its members have also subtly urged Congress to extend and expand incentives for electric vehicles, and they have fought directly with oil groups to oppose model legislation opposing utilities’ electric vehicle ambitions.
Electric Cars Kill The Oil Industry : According to Stanek
Stanek asserted that “the energy utilities are not acting philanthropically.” “Letting them [charge ratepayers] for specific car infrastructure] has an advantage in terms of a return.”
According to some commentators,
utilities’ early concerns about encouraging the use of electric vehicles have caused the power companies to make excessive demands to tax customers for the charging infrastructure.
Karl Rábago, a former Texas utility regulator and senior policy adviser at the Pace Energy and Climate Center, said, “They finally have worked through the blindingly obvious benefits, and having been recalcitrant, are now reaping incentives and concessions that should not have been necessary in the first place.” Feels somewhat narcotic, like rope.
After years of lobbying utilities to accept renewable energy, most environmental groups now see them as strong allies in the effort to reduce transportation pollution. However, the utilities’ turn toward electric vehicles has put them in a delicate position.
Electric Cars Kill The Oil Industry : According to Coplon-Newfield
According to Coplon-Newfield, “Sierra Club has a long and rich history of litigating utilities and opposing utilities when [they] are supporting fossil fuels.” But we have really arrived to some common ground when it comes to the acceleration of electric vehicles.
Environmentalists claim that many of the oil industry’s arguments against electric cars are reminiscent of the 1990s, when automakers and fossil fuel groups successfully lobbied California to scale back its aggressive zero-emission vehicle mandate, as detailed in the well-known documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?”
At that time, California planned to impose a requirement that an increasing proportion of cars sold in the state be alternative fuel vehicles, reaching a maximum of 10% in 2003. However, state air regulators were forced to back down as a result of a concerted lobbying effort by automakers and oil firms, who opposed plans for EV charging stations and claimed there was no market for them.
The status of the automotive industry is one significant development since then. Although American automakers have historically fought vehemently against California restrictions, they are now more open to state-level targets for the use of electric vehicles, especially when they come with financial incentives for doing so.
Ten additional states currently adhere to California’s zero-emission car standards, which now call for electric vehicles to account for around 8% of new vehicle sales by 2025. The industry’s top trade organisation, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, endorsed a zero-emission goal in Colorado in August because it included incentives for buying electric vehicles.
Conclusion
However, electric vehicles are dividing the auto industry just like the oil sector did. Car dealerships publicly oppose electric vehicle requirements and utility charging programmes in Colorado and elsewhere because they primarily make money maintaining gasoline-powered engines.
Stanek asserts that state regulators should be ready for the front lines of the conflict between utilities and the oil sector to move to their states in the near future since automakers are now singing a different song and electric vehicle prices are continuing to decline.
“We are going to see a struggle between the petroleum lobby and the electric utility lobby — I’m talking about API vs. EEI — for market share like we haven’t seen before,” He said.
