https://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/stories/was-2018-year-peak-combustion-engine
[Not just for road vehicles in major markets, but also seen in off-road
applications like mining and marine applications. Look for short-haul
electric aircraft in the next couple of years.
links in online article]
Was 2018 the year of peak combustion engine?
Sales of internal combustion engine cars may never reach this level.
Bryan Nelson
December 30, 2018, 7:18 p.m.
You've probably heard of peak oil or peak coal, the theorized time when
these materials reach their maximum rate of extraction or use. But have
you considered there might also be a peak for the internal combustion
engine?
Experts disagree on whether we've already hit peak oil, but the decline
of the internal combustion engine may already be here. That's according
to a new report from the Financial Times (behind a pay wall), which
claims we'll never see sales of cars with internal combustion engines at
2018 levels ever again.
Although the end has been prophesized to be near for years now, most
experts thought the internal combustion engine still had a few good
years of growth left. But a perfect storm of factors in 2018 has likely
quickened the decline. Notably, the U.S.-led trade war, Brexit,
financing issues among Chinese consumers, the embargo on Iran, and new
emissions targets in Europe, have all led to a "disastrous" year for the
global car market.
"When you look at 2018 since the summer, new car sales in all of the
important markets are going down," said Axel Schmidt, global automotive
lead at Accenture, a global management consulting firm. "Selling
combustion engine cars to customers — this will not grow in the future."
When the global car market does rebound, it will likely be more for the
benefit of electric vehicles rather than cars that run on internal
combustion. Demand for electric and alternative energy vehicles has
steadily been on the rise, with projections that this market will
continue to grow by 1.2 per cent in 2019, eating away at the pie of
marketshare for conventional vehicles.
"'Peak ICE’ — peak internal-combustion-engine car sales globally — may
already have occurred with the ending of 2018," said Elmar Kades, global
co-leader for automotive at AlixPartners. "It's this slowing growth of
the overall pie that the industry should be most concerned with, even as
it has to grapple with — and pay for — the continuing switchover to
electric vehicles."
The biggest factor in setting these trends will be in China, where
alternative fuel car sales nearly doubled in 2018, despite the negative
performance of the car market in general.
And so, we may be at the end of an era. It's welcome news for the
environment, even though 2018 proved to be a record year for global
carbon emissions. Maybe, though, the internal combustion engine will be
the first domino to fall.
