According to the 2013 Shell Lens Scenarios, which tries to predict what the world’s energy dependence could look like in 2100, by 2070 we could be living oil free.
There are lots of factors that went into this prediction, such as increased urbanization, more efficient urban planning, and regulations on CO2 emissions. But the people at Shell believed these factors were so powerful that it made the following claim: the rise in the use of electricity and hydrogen as transportation fuels will result in oil having a meagre 22% of the global transportation market by 2060. It further claims:
By 2070, the passenger road market could be nearly oil-free
Shell lumps electric and hydrogen into the same group, which they project will have a 60% market share by 2060. Shell has a vested interest in pushing the hydrogen barrow as they and Total are currently the only two major oil companies that have stated they are actively developing hydrogen based fueling technology for vehicles.
The rest of the oil industry does not seem to share Shell's opinion. BP predicted in Feb 2012 that electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, will make up only 4 percent of the global fleet by 2030 while Exxon said electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and vehicles that run on natural gas would make up only 5 percent of the fleet by 2040.
Let's hope big oil are only trying to fool themselves with these predictions, because if market trends in the third largest oil exporting nation in the world, Norway, where fully-fledged electric cars have already captured a combined market share of 9.1 per cent, is an accurate leading indicator, even Shell's time scale might be conservative.
