You may have heard I recently bought out the lease on my 2017 Volt and leased a 2018 Volt. I had been planning on getting a Bolt EV as my next vehicle, but didn’t. Here’s why:
In my 2017 Volt, over 30 months and 35,863 miles of driving, I was on electricity 97% of the time. I rarely went out of town and I charge at work and at home, so I almost always drive away with a fully charged battery pack.
Then my life (and my driving habits) started to change.
I became a board member with TxETRA, 
which is based in Austin, Texas. I will be driving to Austin, on almost a monthly basis, to attend board meetings. That’s a 400 mile round trip. I usually do not stay overnight, so I’d need access to DC Fast charging near where the board meetings are held. Since the meeting occur at multiple sites, I cannot be guaranteed of having charger access.
Secondly, my mom is nearing 80 years old and lives in Houston. She is having health issues, so I may need to get to Houston (534 mile round trip) on short notice.
My first board meeting showed me how this could play out. Board meetings are usually on Fridays. The best day to sell cars is Saturday. My plan was to drive to Austin, on Friday morning. After the meeting, I would drive back to Fort Worth, so I could report to work the next morning. Then I got a call from my brother telling me I needed to get to Houston to help out with my mom. I decided to leave Sunday morning to visit mom.
That was 966 miles (plus local driving in Austin and Houston) over a four day period. At the very least, that’s four full charges, for a Bolt EV. On level 2 chargers (that are able to handle 32 amps) that’s 36 hours of charging, out of 96 total hours in four days. DC Fast charging infrastructure is not built out in Texas, outside of major cities. That’s part of the work we’ve been doing at TxETRA. We recently compiled a white paper for the state government, that overlaid the electric grid map of Texas with the highway map, to show the most cost-effective locations for DC fast chargers to support intercity travel. By 2023, TxETRA proposed DC fast chargers to be located every 50 miles between Texas’ major cities (Houston, Austin/San Antonio and Dallas/Fort Worth). Once these are in place, My driving habits could be handled by the Bolt EV.
My lease is for 36 months, so my expectation is I will be driving a fully electric vehicle, once the new lease ends.
What will my new EV be?
That’s a very good question, since I expect to have LOTS of choices by then…maybe even an electric two-seat convertible…
If a recent IEA report predicting a 50% cut in oil supply within six years is correct, there will be plenty of EV choices as gasoline prices start to shoot to the moon, and companies rush to fill a stampeding demand for EVs.
“[A] collapse of oil supply to half of its current size within only six years simply cannot be compensated by new oil findings and certainly not by unconventional oil sources like oil sands and fracking. That the Oil Majors did not pick up with new oil exploration after the oil price rose again to $100 per barrel in the years after 2008 is another sign that the world is already ‘overexplored.'”
What companies will be positioned to fulfill the demand for EVs? Looks to me like Tesla and a whole bunch of companies based in China and maybe VW if recent reports are correct. Foot dragging by other legacy auto makers may be fatal.
Peak Oil & Drastic Oil Shortages Imminent, Says IEA
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/11/22/peak-oil-drastic-oil-shortages-imminent-says-iea/
As oil and gasoline prices rise, it will be interesting to see what year will be declared as “Peak Demand” for oil as car buyers move to EVs.