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Transportation

Gas-Powered Cars Won't Die Off Any Time Soon (axios.com) 357

Posted by BeauHD from the future-is-still-electric dept.
According to S&P Global Mobility, the average age of light vehicles on the road in the U.S. is now at an all-time high of 12.5 years, up three months from 2022. Two decades ago, their average was 9.7 years. Axios reports: The impact: The transition from gas to electric cars will take decades.

It'll likely take until at least 2050 -- and possibly longer -- before most gas-powered cars are off the road, Campau says.

Of note: EV longevity is going in the opposite direction. Their average age fell from 3.7 years in 2022 to 3.6 years in 2023, in part due to an upswing in new purchases.

By the numbers: About 6.6% of battery-powered EVs bought between 2013-2022 have left the passenger fleet, compared with 5.2% of non-EVs -- but [...] it's too early to know why. EVs generally come with an 8-year, 100,000-mile warranty -- but early evidence suggests they last longer than that, according to an analysis by Recurrent, which tracks battery data. Carmakers say electric cars should last 15 to 20 years, but modern EVs haven't been around long enough to validate that claim. The report projects that there will be fewer than 100 million passenger cars on the road within the next 18-24 months -- a low not seen since 1978. By 2028, at least 7 in 10 vehicles on the road will be pickups, SUVs or crossovers.
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Gas-Powered Cars Won't Die Off Any Time Soon More

Gas-Powered Cars Won't Die Off Any Time Soon

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  • Average age is 12.5 years? (Score:5, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @08:41PM (#63527309)

    Amateurs.

    • Amateurs.

      Yup. My 2001 Honda Civic Ex and 2002 CR-V Ex (both 5-speed manual) are still running great.

      • Amateurs.

        Yup. My 2001 Honda Civic Ex and 2002 CR-V Ex (both 5-speed manual) are still running great.

        Same with my 85 BMW shark

        • One of the engineers I work with is driving his 1967 Triumph Herald to work at the moment. I think his daughter's car is off the road so she's driving his normal day-to-day car.

    • You got rid of your 93 wagon, I remember the post!

      But for real, it doesn't matter how long the cars last. It matters how long it's profitable for gas stations to be in business.

      Without serious government subsidies, and I'm not sure that public opinion will allow for it, gas station chains are set for collapse. And that's going to be a real shit-show. As people transition to electric vehicles, the weakest of the gas station chains will go out of business. That will drive their remaining customers to the rest

      • You got rid of your 93 wagon, I remember the post!

        I knew I'd "announced" that here, but didn't think anyone would remember! But yeah, I finally got rid of it 4+ years ago - I'm now driving a 2015 Toyota Camry. I don't know that I'll keep it into the 2030s though... I'd love to get one of those F-150 Lightnings (or its successor) in a few years.

  • No Gas (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Gas-powered cars have been dying off recently. The ten-yearly tank pressure check cost and hassles simply aren't worth it. We're going to be stuck with petrol and electricity from now on.

    • Funny comment. However there is a death spiral coming for ICE cars. Basically if 50% of vehicles become BEV, then expect 50% of filling stations to close. All of a sudden filling your ICE vehicle becomes a chore so you switch to BEV, and the death spiral continues until only a hard core remain. There is also a distinct possibility that the price of the fuel for you ICE vehicle will increase significantly due to the lower demand.

      • Filing stations make most of their profits on selling food, snacks and drinks. They will remove some pumps and install chargers to meet demand. This is not an all or nothing scenario.

      • Honestly, 50% of gas stations closing wouldn't inconvenience me in the slightest. There's four of them within a quarter mile of me. When I have to drive 10 miles to find one, then I'll feel somewhat inconvenienced but will still adapt pretty quick.

  • In the last few decades, they made cars to last (Score:3, Informative)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @08:49PM (#63527331)

    Part of this is because new cars have really ramped up in price, and even used cars can go for a fair amount now...

    But part of this increase is simple because people can. It used to be holding onto a car for ver ten years meant enormous expense in maintaining things constantly breaking. But cars especially built in the past ten years, are now generally pretty reliable and built of materials that last a long time. So more and more holding a car over ten years means you still have a pretty nice car.

    My car is over ten years old, mine is one of the models not really known for reliability so every few years I do have about $5k in repairs that have to be done. But every time I think bait maybe getting a new car at that point, $5k would not even cover new car registration! So I just try and keep the car in as absolutely top shape as I can, so I still enjoy driving it even if old.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Z80a ( 971949 )

      Also modern cars are turning into "internet of things" with DRM locked features that are built in and are most likely extremely unreliable, given the incursion of the internet enabled computers into em.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Just detach the antenna if you are worried about it. No car on the market requires an internet connection to work, and no manufacturer would be dumb enough to put that requirement in because their customers would be annoyed when the car wouldn't start in their garage.

        Reliability wise the main effect of all the tech seems to have been that many manufacturers initially struggled with it killing the 12V battery. In an EV where the 12V battery is small since it doesn't have to crank anything, it's supposed to b

    • This is a good point. The calculus of these types of decisions is normally that it is more efficient/sustainable to keep using an inefficient older product, rather than replace with a newer, more efficient model. I've seen calculations for HVAC, refrigerators, etc. With any vehicle made in the last 20 years or so, it's almost certainly better, environmentally speaking, to keep the older ICE going as long as possible.

      My car, a Ford, is 7 years old. I've had about once a year oil changes, I've replaced the ti

  • I'm going to say they are going to last longer, much longer. I will say there are going to be ICE cars puttering around 100 years from now. They probably won't be burning gasoline, but some more environmentally friendly fuel. Infact I'm going to bet that if such a fuel comes along electric cars will become a passing fad.

    There is nothing wrong with the ICE engine. It's just the current fuel we have chosen to use in it.

    • I'm going to say they are going to last longer, much longer. I will say there are going to be ICE cars puttering around 100 years from now. They probably won't be burning gasoline, but some more environmentally friendly fuel. Infact I'm going to bet that if such a fuel comes along electric cars will become a passing fad.

      There is nothing wrong with the ICE engine. It's just the current fuel we have chosen to use in it.

      Yes, synthetic fuels are already being developed so people can continue to drive their high end cars, but it is just a matter of time before they become practical for everyone with a a traditional engine.

      https://www.caranddriver.com/n... [caranddriver.com]

      There is a future for people who don't equate their car with their toaster oven.

      • Practical to drive your old timer as a hobby, practical if your fuel costs are an infinitesimal part of your income regardless ... probably not practical for peons for every day driving, too expensive.

        • Practical to drive your old timer as a hobby, practical if your fuel costs are an infinitesimal part of your income regardless ... probably not practical for peons for every day driving, too expensive.

          People said that about electricity once. Ironic hey?

    • There's a short list of easy to synthesize fuels. Methane is only liquid at cryogenic temperatures, fine for trucking but not so much consumer cars. Ammonia makes for dangerous accidents. Formic acid is okay, but works much better with fuel cells than ICE.

      Even then the synthesis is only relatively easy ... people are cheap, EVs will win for the majority.

      • Synthetic gasoline. Made to run in cars designed for gasoline including old and new ones, and not methane or ammonia.

        https://www.bosch.com/stories/... [bosch.com]

        https://www.repsol.com/en/tech... [repsol.com]

        • It takes a lot of steps, methane and formic acid only one. Methane doesn't even need any equipment for the reaction, just pump hydrogen and carbon dioxide into a depleted gas field. It's going to matter in cost.

      • Ammonia makes for dangerous accidents

        I'm pretty sure any kind of car makes for dangerous accidents, ammonia isn't going to be all that unique in this respect.

        Ammonia may be a near ideal fuel in the future. An ammonia leak will be detected by our noses long before it becomes a real hazard to life or health, people will be able to leave the area before it becomes a suffocation hazard or something which is unlike many other fuels. Small amounts of ammonia won't cause any long lasting health issues, the body deals with it well enough. That is u

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xack ( 5304745 )
      Steam locomotives are still popular 60 years later after been withdrawn from mainline service thanks to heritage railways, they have even outlasted their diesel replacements in many cases. Classic car enthusiasts will keep their cars going for a long time and pass them down to future generations.

  • I will keep my diesel car for as long as possible (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @09:12PM (#63527365)

    And here's why:

    - Its resale value is down the shitter because nobody wants a second-hand diesel. When you buy a car like mine, you know it's a dead-end technology and you're buying the past. Electric cars have killed the residual value of dinosaur-juice vehicles. So I might as well keep my car: it works well, it's paid for, and I'm not losing any money as long as I keep it.

    - I want the eletric transition to be fully worked out before I buy a new (electric) car. I.e. I don't want to figure out where the next charger is, how to have a charger installed at my home, what I need to do when the temperatures dip below 10 degrees (I live far up north). I want all that stuff to have become as natural and painless as the gasoline-powered infrastructure is today by the time I'm ready to buy an electric car. The more I wait, the less I'll have to be a first adopter and play guinea pig for someone else.

    - My car cost a lot of carbon to produce, and still produces carbon when I use it. But if I sell it and buy a new electric car, my carbon footprint will be a lot higher than if I just keep that car and drive it another 50,000 miles in good condition. I care for the environment, so I'll keep my diesel as long as replacing it with an electric car has a negative carbon impact.

    - My car isn't online and doesn't track me 24/7. I don't know what car I'll buy next when I finally buy a new car, but when I do, it'd better not be on the fucking internet. And if it is, I'd better be able to rip the SIM off to disable that. Because I have no intention of letting Ford, GM... and their little big data buddies Google, Amazon or Microsoft put me under surveillance in my car too. And if I can't find a car that works offline - which I suspect will probably be the case soon - then I'll quit driving altogether.

    I suspect a lot of people reason like I do and stretch the life of their current car a lot longer than they would normally have before the electric car came on the scene. In other words, a lot of people punt and wait for the kinks of the new stuff to be worked out before blowing their hard-earned on something new.

    • My car cost a lot of carbon to produce, and still produces carbon when I use it. But if I sell it and buy a new electric car, my carbon footprint will be a lot higher than if I just keep that car and drive it another 50,000 miles in good condition. I care for the environment, so I'll keep my diesel as long as replacing it with an electric car has a negative carbon impact.

      Actually it looks like that number might be closer to 13k miles [reuters.com], maybe a bit sooner since diesel emits more carbon than gasoline.

      I suspect a lot of people reason like I do and stretch the life of their current car a lot longer than they would normally have before the electric car came on the scene. In other words, a lot of people punt and wait for the kinks of the new stuff to be worked out before blowing their hard-earned on something new.

      I can understand this and won't argue with me. But for certain I'm p

      • It is sad you live in Alberta and fueling your car is a hardship. Probably you are in the wrong line of work.

    • My car isn't online and doesn't track me 24/7. I don't know what car I'll buy next when I finally buy a new car, but when I do, it'd better not be on the fucking internet. And if it is, I'd better be able to rip the SIM off to disable that. Because I have no intention of letting Ford, GM... and their little big data buddies Google, Amazon or Microsoft put me under surveillance in my car too.

      Very much this sentiment for me too. I should be able to switch off any internet connection in my car easily. But unless this gets mandated, it's not gonna happen because the data gained is too valuable and you can't serve custom ads. Because that's the next thing coming for cars, ads on your dash when you stop.

      "It's lunch time - feeling hungry? There's company X down the block. Say "yes" to drive there."

      And don't forget the whole geofencing of cars, that's coming too. Want to drive into the city? Nope,

    • Any sufficiently cheap vehicle will be too cheap for them to pay for mobile Internet service. Alternatively, we can start pushing open source vehicles.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        The cost of the service just needs to be outweighed by the profit made from the service.
        If they are collecting data and/or selling ads, then it could very easily be making more money than it cost for the service and necessary hardware.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by djgl ( 6202552 )

      You forgot the issue that gasoline is still too cheap. If its price included the cost of getting the CO2 back out of the atmosphere, EVs would become much more attractive.

    • If you are really worried about being tracked, get rid of your phone, computer, credit cards, loyalty cards etc

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dargaud ( 518470 )
      I'm reasoning in a similar way. I have 2 diesels cause I live in the country and they work fine. But my parent gave us theirs because they weren't allowed to drive it in many cities anymore. And to jump to your 4th point, they bought a car from their usual (for 50 years) store and they returned it after 2 months. They hated it. Everything touch screen. Needs subscriptions. Some things were optional and needed to be activated online. Etc.
      After a long and hard discussion with another salesman they bough a h

  • The problem with internal combustion engines is not that they burn fuel, it is that we are burning fossil fuels. Switch the fuel to synthesized hydrocarbons and we solved the problem, and done so without creating all kinds of new problems about places to charge and recharge times.

    A big problem with renewable energy sources is intermittency, they cannot be relied upon to provide power when needed. To resolve this there are people developing energy storage solutions. Synthesized fuel is an energy storage s

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by taustin ( 171655 )

      The problem with internal combustion engines is not that they burn fuel, it is that we are burning fossil fuels. Switch the fuel to synthesized hydrocarbons and we solved the problem, and done so without creating all kinds of new problems about places to charge and recharge times.

      Nice theory, except synthetic gas on that scale would be obscenely expensive even compared to the artificially inflated prices today, and . . .

      It takes energy to synthesize gasoline. More energy than you get out of it when you burn it, in fact. And the only viable source on that scale would be hydrocarbon fuels.

      So ding, thanks for playing, collect your consolation prize on your way out.

      • Nice theory, except synthetic gas on that scale would be obscenely expensive even compared to the artificially inflated prices today, and . . .

        We can afford it. And demand will make it cheaper. Not caring if you don't like it at all. Go back under your rock.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by taustin ( 171655 )

          Nice theory, except synthetic gas on that scale would be obscenely expensive even compared to the artificially inflated prices today, and . . .

          We can afford it.

          Tell that to people living hand to mouth now - there are more and more of them every day, thanks to insane leftists like you.

          But hey, fuck poor people. They should just go away and die somewhere so you don't have to look at them eh?

          • Nice theory, except synthetic gas on that scale would be obscenely expensive even compared to the artificially inflated prices today, and . . .

            We can afford it.

            Tell that to people living hand to mouth now - there are more and more of them every day, thanks to insane leftists like you.

            But hey, fuck poor people. They should just go away and die somewhere so you don't have to look at them eh?

            Hard to remember the last time I have been called a leftist LOL.

            Poor people are going to find ways to keep driving their ICE until you and I are both dead. A new EV is not in their future anytime soon.

      • It takes energy to synthesize gasoline. More energy than you get out of it when you burn it, in fact.

        It takes energy to charge a battery, more energy than you get out. Your point?

        To be rid of fossil fuels means finding an alternative to those fuels. Whatever that energy source might be we can use that to synthesize fuels. There's going to be energy lost in the fuel synthesis process but then we will have losses in storing any energy. Not all energy losses have an equal dollar cost. People won't much care about energy efficiency if it doesn't translate into lost money. As an example we didn't see much

        • It takes energy to charge a battery, more energy than you get out. Your point?

          The point is, obviously, the round-trip efficiency of batteries is vastly better than synfuels. BEVs typically get 85% usable energy out of what you put in. Synfuel is 15%-20% at best [arstechnica.com], and likely a lot worse depending on the process.

          To make synfuel, you generally need hydrogen and CO2 precursors, and producing those with carbon-neutral methods (i.e. not sourced from fossil fuels, which would defeat the whole point) is very energy-expensive - hydrogen electrolysis is around 50%, and CO2 is often much worse,

          • The point is, obviously, the round-trip efficiency of batteries is vastly better than synfuels.

            No, the point is dollars per mile.

            Put this in terms of dollars in to dollars out to see the big picture. Looking at watt-hours in to watt-hours out is just half the picture, because not every watt-hour has the same dollar value.

            Whereas BEVs can be plugged into any wall socket, and can even be charged in the remotest of situations with nothing more than a few solar cells and an inverter.

            Look into the dollar value of those solar panels and the value of shipping synthesized fuels to some remote location appears quite different. Do you have any idea how much volume, land area, and/or mass of solar PV panels would have to be installed to charge up a car in any meaning

    • The hydro electric dam down the road has been pushing electrons 24x7 for the past 70 years......

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nuntius ( 92696 )

      There are many options for storing energy: traditional batteries, flow batteries (tanks of chemicals), synthetic fuel (C-based), H2 fuel, pumped hydro, flywheels, ...
      They all vary in how much energy they can store, how much power they can produce, round-trip efficiency (short term), long-term loss, number of charge cycles, size and weight density, ...
      Here's a back-of-the-envelope comparison of batteries to synthetic fuels.
      Lithium battery round-trip efficiency is roughly 90%, and electric motor efficiency i

    • all combustion pollutes. the point of EVs it to stop burning stuff

  • Stop selling petrol cars by 2030-2035 so you can do net zero by 2050-2055.

    Most cars will near end of economic life by then, so you can force costly synth fuel at the pumps without a revolution.

  • It's odd to suggest the aging ICE vehicles means there will be more of them for longer.

    When we see human populations age so dramatically, we generally think it's leading to demographic collapse.

  • EV longevity is going in the opposite direction. Their average age fell from 3.7 years in 2022 to 3.6 years in 2023, in part due to an upswing in new purchases.

    For EVs, longevity does not equal average age, because nearly all EVs have not yet reached end of life. That average of 3.6 years reflects the fact that until about 3-5 years ago, no one could actually obtain an EV, even if they wanted one.

  • Hail an Uber.ai to take you 2 miles or 200 miles, with any combination of passengers and cargo and watch videos or play games while the network takes care of all the details. This is what will eventually make both ICEs and old EVs obsolete. Well not all of them and for various corner cases there is nothing wrong with human driven ICEs. It's always a question of scale, both routine commute and industrial trucking are more conveniently served by automated vehicles running on locally generated power.

    • Try that solution in a place with no Uber drivers (large areas of the country).

      People who live on their cell phones and have gigabit internet connections have no grasp on the life experiences of large parts of the country. I am reminded of a news bit I saw when Obamacare first began and young volunteers were fanning-out around the country to help seniors and the poor sign-up for the magical new health system that was about to fix all our problems. In the video, the kid was helping an old farmer sign up in s

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by iamacat ( 583406 )

        What part of "self driving" don't you understand? No need for Uber drivers. Quite possibly transport of animals is one of exceptions where human driven ICEs make sense.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • flawed statistics. (Score:3)

    by sxpert ( 139117 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2023 @02:34AM (#63527751)

    it's more likely that people are putting off replacing their ICE car while waiting for the affordable electric car to show up on the market.

  • I'd look at Norway to see what will happen in other countries since they're only 2 years from an outright ban on ICE cars and already 93% of new sales are EVs (7% being PHEV). The market will fall out from under gas stations and as it does owning an ICE vehicle becomes a pain in the ass - having to drive further and pay more to fill the car because there is less demand and competition. Over time people will struggle to sell them too so used prices will collapse too - who wants to buy a new car they won't be

    • I'd add that it is also extremely likely that some major automotive companies are likely to go bankrupt in this period - the ones that didn't invest in building battery / motor / assembly plants are fucked. They won't be able to compete on price with the ones that did. There is already plenty of foreshadowing of that. Japanese manufacturers in particular but even US and some European brands aren't immune.

  • Simple explanation for EVs current low longevity (Score:3)

    by sonlas ( 10282912 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2023 @04:25AM (#63527961)

    I am a bit late to this discussion, so I guess my post won't reach many people...

    EV longevity is going in the opposite direction. Their average age fell from 3.7 years in 2022 to 3.6 years in 2023

    By the numbers: About 6.6% of battery-powered EVs bought between 2013-2022 have left the passenger fleet, compared with 5.2% of non-EVs -- but [...] it's too early to know why.

    This has already been documented, and it is mainly because EV are going faster to the junkyard when they are involved in an accident [reuters.com]. The problem is with the non-repairability of batteries (especially Tesla which goes a long way to make it non-repairable at all), and the hazard an even slightly-damaged battery poses. Whereas for an ICE, it is far less costly to just replace the fuel tank if need be.

    It also brings questions about the sustainability of the second-hand market for EV, at least until sellers can prove that their battery hasn't been damaged during the first years of ownership.

    As an EV generates ~1.5 to 2 times more CO2 at manufacturing than an ICE (~8 tons of CO2eq for an ICE, 12-16 for an EV depending on the battery size), it means that buying an EV and scraping it early is actually worse for the climate...

    One solution for that would be a standard for battery design, making them repairable and more easily recyclable.

    • This has already been documented, and it is mainly because EV are going faster to the junkyard when they are involved in an accident. The problem is with the non-repairability of batteries (especially Tesla which goes a long way to make it non-repairable at all), and the hazard an even slightly-damaged battery poses. Whereas for an ICE, it is far less costly to just replace the fuel tank if need be.

      When an EV battery shows up at the junkyard, they sell it. There's a healthy market. Visibly damaged packs are substantially less valuable, but even those can be sold. Many packs are built up from modules, and each module has resale value. The main example in the US is the most common type of Model S packs, which have (5?) ~20V nominal modules in them and each module is useful on its own. BMSes and cables have been developed for them so that you can use them plug-and-play as solar storage. Vehicles have been getting easier and easier to total basically throughout their history. As the construction becomes more complicated, repair becomes more expensive, and modern unibodies are very complex. A vehicle may have three or four different alloys (frequently even wholly different metals!) and use a half dozen different techniques for joining them. Even those vehicles which still have full frames (i.e. pickups a quarter ton and above) now have heat treated, fancy alloy frame materials and basically nobody welds them any more — when they do, they usually screw it up.

  • duh (Score:3)

    by redback ( 15527 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2023 @04:50AM (#63527989)

    duh

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