How does one get gasoline in 2050 for your 2030 vehicle

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Keep in mind that the energy source and the vehicle’s fuel are separate things. Right now, gasoline is produced with energy and feedstock from petroleum. It’s quite possible to generate liquid hydrocarbon fuels from other sources without using fossil feedstock. As long as there’s demand for fuels with high energy-to-mass ratios, there will be a supply.

I have solar power and an electric car. But my electric company (a municipal utility) gives me time-of-day trade-in value on electricity. Basically, every kWh I give it at peak time is a kWh I can take back at peak time. And the same for other time slots: mid-peak and off-peak. But no cash-outs. It’ll be paid-for in about 7 years.

Before switching to solar, the marginal cost for drive my Chevy Bolt was $0.02 per mile, assuming I was charging between midnight and 6am, which I did. With solar panels, it’s more complicated, because of accumulated traded-in power. The panels more than cover my daily commute, so my marginal cost is effectively $0 per mile.

22

There will still be gas stations, just far fewer of them. My hometown which has about 5000 people has 4 different gas stations. In the future maybe 80% of them will disappear, but they’ll still exist. Also in the future there will probably be carbon neutral fossil fuels, or carbon capture technology which reduces the impact of fossil fuels.

Is that 46 MJ/kg usable energy or total energy? About 80% of gasoline energy is wasted as heat when operating a car. I agree about the low energy density, but electric cars can now travel about 300 miles. A kwh of battery is about 2-3 miles of distance, and newer cars can have 100 kwh of battery power. Also with an electric car you save a lot of weight by having fewer moving parts. Engines, transmissions, etc. At about 4kg/kwh of battery weight, a car with a 200-300 mile range may have about a thousand pounds of batteries, but thats probably around what an engine and transmission weights in an ICE vehicle. Its kind of a moot point for passenger vehicles, the extra weight of batteries is offset by the lower weight of fewer moving parts made of steel.

For passenger airlines, the energy density of fossil fuels vs electric is still a major issue preventing the adoption of electric planes, but IMO its not really a big problem for passenger vehicles right now.

23

I’m just quoting that part as a launching point. I’m not an economist, and I’ll take the semantics as an educational moment but hope we’re having more of a conversation than a dissertation. Frankly, I kind of saw the OP as a bit of a lead-in to a car-free scifi dystopia anyway, a fun bit of bar-room banter with perhaps the chance for some back-of-the-napkin math.

In a projection brawl against the New Yorker, I’ll come up on the short end of that stick, sure. I was able only to read the text (the article is effectively paywalled) but the article IS US-centric. And, without intending offense, the US collectively lags behind the world average in concern for the environment, and has less alternatives for personal transport than other G8 nations.

While it does represent a significant market share, it’s not the majority of the world market. The New Yorker article, based on my somewhat-hampered reading, does not seem to take global trends into account in its projections.

If you were to say, “US trends for vehicles suggest 40-60% IC engines by 2050,” I would not argue with you. Globally? I think I would.

But all that aside, let’s just roll with that 40% factor world-wide, because why not? What’s the other 60%?

Some of that is electric, likely battery-powered electric. Factors to consider are whether the province of Alberta can start lithium processing (since it’s suggested they have large deposits) and whether some of the projected battery advancements do take place. I’m bullish on batteries, but I’m not excited by them.

I imagine there will be a lot of stopgap measures, like propane or LNG. It’s perfectly feasible to convert a gasoline engine to run on either of those fuels, and while they’re still dumping carbon, LNG could theoretically be carbon-neutral if you made it from biowaste. Who knows?

What’s that leave? Hydrogen is something I’m personally enthused by but I know it’s kind of a joke because it’s so impractical on every level. Kinetic energy storage (read: flywheels) are just a “casual, haha” issue of sorting out the material science behind making a flywheel that can store enough energy without self-grenading, and that’s proven to be an utterly non-trivial problem.

So I’d probably go with “batteries, and more batteries,” followed by LNG, as to what would replace most engines.

The last point I had, now that I remember: I think it’s kind of a leap on the article’s part to go from, “The average age of a vehicle is 12 years,” to, “Most vehicles will survive 20 years or more.” But that’s an entirely subjective feeling without math behind it, so you may as well call it handwaving.

24

You are very short on any actual facts here, this is MPSIMS so to a degree it’s whatever. I’ve produced a New York Times article backed by at least three pieces of actual research (which I’ll call out since you said you couldn’t read the Times article–but as a rule you should pay for journalism, expecting journalism for free is not fair to journalists and is bad for society):

Decarbonizing US passenger vehicle transport under electrification and automation uncertainty has a travel budget (iop.org)

2017_nhts_summary_travel_trends.pdf (ornl.gov)

Pivoting to an electrified future | IHS Markit

The IHS Markit study is not strictly US based, and specifically states:

A key take away from that study (you can read it in the summary–you need to request a download to read the full Markit projectiosn):

The year 2027 emerges as a tipping point after which rates of electric vehicle (EV) sales will rise sharply. By 2030, one in four new passenger car sales will be fully electric-with rates much higher by 2040. This article seeks to outline the key drivers of this new accelerated trend and their impact on the industry’s propulsion choices.

I find it highly unlikely gas cars will be so uncommon in 2050, if 75% of cars sold in 2030 and more than 50% in 2040 are gas, that we would be struggling to find a gas station.

Now I agree with you this thread wasn’t about getting into the weeds. I did not endeavor to do so, I simply state that 2050 is a tad too soon for the hypothetical. You seem to want to argue against that but don’t seem to want to do the work of providing citations/evidence, so I’m happy to simply say it’s a casual conversation and based on the evidence I have available to me it is highly unlikely gas stations are difficult to find in 2050 and you can think otherwise and we can leave it at that.

I’ll also note that this is a U.S. centric board, and the OP asked if they’d have to go to a Wal-Mart or an Autozone to get gas in 2050 (these are mostly U.S. chains), so if we confine ourselves to the parameters of the OP EV trends internationally aren’t actually all that relevant either.

25

Well, let me tip my figurative hat to you, because you are correct. I did not bring a lot to the table and I have no problem admitting that. For what it’s worth, I’d not be coming on this strong outside of this forum, but I’m feeling chatty, despising these faculty meetings, and grateful that they’re on Zoom so I can talk about cars instead of students and I can just pretend to look interested.

(I even agree with you about the journalism)

My central point, which I’m not desperately married to, was that I kind of expected a sharp curtailing of IC automotive sales worldwide by 2030 for reasons kind of summarized in my wikipedia link, and that I didn’t expect currently-existing cars to last that long. I’ve seen a lot of horrific rust monsters around these parts, with so much rust lace that I privately call them fender-doilies.

So you’re right, based on what you’re showing me, and there’s little point in me flailing about with these points. I’m no economist.

But let’s curl this back to the original OP, if you will? “when fewer petrol-powered vehicles are on the road.” Clearly your solution is, “There’ll be lots of gasoline to be had.” Mine is, “You can just burn ethanol to keep your car rolling and I bet there’s a specialist market for it.”

I’m curious if you’ve got a personal ideal scenario here, honestly.

26

Diesel locomotives are much easier to convert to electric than road vehicles are, and so will presumably reach total conversion long before cars do. In fact, for significant portions of the country, diesel locomotives are already pure-electric, and have been for decades.

27

A few points:

  1. The best forecast for the future of ICE vehicles will be the resale value of used ICE cars, and the residual value of new cars once we get close to any kind of real change. If you buy a new car today, you can expect to drive it for five or ten years then sell it. If cars were to be outlawed by 2035, or if gas constraints are going to make them unusable by then, you would expect to see new cars begin to lose their residual value starting in 2025, making new ICE cars more expensive to own. Used cars will start to lose their value at a somewhat later time, because they won’t last as long as a new one.

  2. We don’t yet know what limitations we will run up against once electric car sales become substantial. Extrapolations of future use based on the growth of infant industries are almost always optimistic. We are already seeing California ask people not to charge their cars during energy shortages, and those shortages are going to get worse as more people buy electric cars and California continues to do insane things like shutting down the Diablo Canyon nuclear power station without having a replacement.

We may also run into infrastructure limitations with local power transformers and such. Today if you request a 150 amp service for your level 2 charger you will likely get it because neighborhoods are built with some excess capacity. But if enough people buy electric cars we are going to have to do some major upgrades in some areas to support them.

Prices are always assumed to come down over time, but that’s not always the case. We currently are resource limited in things like lithium, rare earths, copper, and other resources needed for electric cars. I bought shares in a lithium ETF after the Mustang-E came out, on the grounds that we were about to see a major increase in electric car sales and the lithium supply wouldn’t keep up. Lithium since then has almost doubled in price.

It’s entirely possible that rising lithium and other resource prices and the difficulty of opening new lithium mines could drive EV prices up to the point where sales really taper off.

28

I was going to say that it’s probably going to be a lot like kerosene. In other words, there will be a few remaining niche uses- camping stoves, outdoor power equipment, racing, etc… but the age of being able to commonly buy it in large quantities will be gone.

Instead, you’ll be buying it by the quart or gallon like we do with kerosene. And I suspect there’ll be “gasoline substitutes” made from stuff like butanol or other non-petroleum sources that can be used for those purposes as well. I’m not so sure it’ll be entirely uncommon; kerosene isn’t exactly hard to come by in smaller quantities. But if you’re wanting to gas up your vintage 1995 car, it’s going to cost you a pretty penny, and probably not be ideal for it to run on.

29

Well where do you go for car repairs. The place I use is primarily a repair shop that also sells gas. They also store my winter tires in summer and summer tires in winter, not to mention changing them.

30

As long as there is a significant percentage of gas cars on the road, there will still be places that sell gas. For many stores, the expense of installing tanks and pumps has already been paid (or the loan is already taken), so they may as well continue to sell gas as long as there are some people around to buy it.

However, the maintenance on those tanks and pumps is not free. As fewer people are buying gas, some places will decide to stop selling it, because they can’t even break even on the expense. The money used on pumps and tanks will be used on high speed chargers, or whatever, and the number of places to buy gas will decrease.

At some point the number of places to buy gas will decrease enough that selling gas is profitable again (even if not in the direct sales of the gas). People will go to that particular store because it is the one with gas. That will encourage those places to continue to pay to keep their pumps.

As number of gas cars, and gas consumers, continues to decline, the cycle will repeat, then reach a new equilibrium for a while. Each time through the cycle, the number of places selling gas will go down, the number of places producing gas will also decline, and the price of gas will continue to increase.

I think the availability will really depend on what part of the cycle we’re in. When 20% of cars still use gas, it won’t be too difficult to find, even if not on “every corner” like today. When 0.5% of cars, and only hobbyist antiques at that, use gas, it will probably be like going to an airport to buy leaded gas. It will be around, but you’ll need to know where to go to get it.

31

Auto repair shops, which, at least in my area (suburban Chicago) nearly never also sell gasoline anymore – though, many of them are at locations which, once upon a time, were gas stations/service stations.

32

Cost is only part of the equation. Gasoline is incredibly energy-dense. It also comes in a form that makes it easy and convenient to handle.

Battery technology has advanced somewhat from when this was written, but the overall point still stands.

Gasoline was quickly recognized as nature’s ideal fuel for cars: it has a very high energy density by both weight and volume–around 500 times that of a lead-acid battery–and it was plentiful, inexpensive, and seemingly unlimited in supply.

33

Somewhat? The title alone is laughable now, “Has the Battery Bubble Burst?” No, it hasn’t–EV sales have increased dramatically since 2012. Tesla sold about 600 cars per quarter in 2012; last quarter they delivered 200,000. And many other players are in the market as well.

A narrow focus on energy density is the wrong way of going about things, and part of the reason why EVs sucked for so long. The assumption was that EVs are just like gas cars, except with a battery instead of a gas tank. That’s not how you get a good EV, though.

An efficient modern EV has a battery with the energy equivalent of 2 gallons of gas, but goes 300 miles or so. The battery weighs several hundred kilograms, way more than the gas tank, but that’s ok because you gain numerous other advantages.

34

I am surprised no one has mentioned a wood gas generator.

35

I believe kits for gas–>electric conversion are already on the market. A converted vehicle won’t be as good as a designed-as-EV because there’s a number of ways to improve the latter.

36

How was the “regular” gas, aka leaded gas, phased out?

in the 80s I had a 1965 mustang. it had the original engine. at the time gas stations had “regular” or “unleaded”

All new cars by that time where “unleaded”.

My mustang was a piece of junk that I eventually got rid of, so I don’t know what happened when they actually stopped selling leaded gasoline.

37

I live in one of the most expensive parts of the country for electricity and it is <5 cents a mile to charge a Tesla. Your friend is bad at math or lives in a place with very strange electricity prices.

38

I think the answer was “with lots of warning, and then rather abruptly,” but it’s not exactly covered in history books here.

But you could still get cans of tetraethyl lead (ie: “lead juice”) and dump some into your fuel if you wanted to keep at it, although it wasn’t really necessary. The lead just served as an octane booster and the engines ran just fine without it. The supposed lubricant effects were overstated.

39

This is all kinds of wrong. My panels actually did pay back in just 7 years. I was originally expecting 10 years. But electricity went up faster than I expected. But I would need to know a lot more about his $25k installation, especially the rated wattage of the system and angle of the installation and and location.

The cost to charge the Tesla is very suspect and I don’t trust his figures.

40

Straight alcohol won’t get the job done. A spark-ignited engine can run on alcohol once it’s warmed up, but it won’t cold-start on alcohol in ambient temps below about 55F. This is why E85 exists: the gasoline includes components that vaporize more readily and produce a combustible mixture at low start temps.