Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry
Found on Bloomberg on Wednesday, 25 April 2018
China had about 99 percent of the 385,000 electric buses on the roads worldwide in 2017, accounting for 17 percent of the country’s entire fleet. Every five weeks, Chinese cities add 9,500 of the zero-emissions transporters—the equivalent of London’s entire working fleet, according Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
For every 1,000 battery-powered buses on the road, about 500 barrels a day of diesel fuel will be displaced from the market, according to BNEF calculations.
The question is, where does the energy come from? If it is based on burning coal, then the electric buses are pointless. Only if China generates the required energy from renewable sources it's useful. It's a bit surprising though that other engine types, based on e.g. hydrogen, are not mentioned anymore now even though they offer more benefits: no need for large scale battery production (which costs resources too), independant of the current power grid, easier transport, faster to refuel, easier to integrate into current filling stations.