Over the next 30 years, ExxonMobil expects hybrid vehicles to move from the margins to the mainstream. As a result, energy trends in the transportation sector will diverge in an unprecedented way, with demand for personal transportation fuels changing very little even as commercial transportation energy needs continue to rise sharply.
Personal, or light duty, vehicles are the cars, SUVs and light pickup trucks that people drive in their everyday lives. From now through 2040, the number of personal vehicles in the world – what we call “the global fleet” – will nearly double, to 1.6 billion vehicles. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of this growth will come from the Non OECD, where prosperity is growing rapidly and vehicle ownership levels today are relatively low.
And yet global demand for fuel for personal vehicles will soon peak and then begin to decline. The reason is an expected steep increase in average vehicle fuel economy. Largely because of tightening government standards,
ExxonMobil expects that by 2040, hybrids and other advanced vehicles will account for nearly 50 percent of all light duty vehicles on the road, compared to only about 1 percent today.
On the other hand, demand for commercial transportation – mostly trucks, but also airplanes, ships and trains – is expected to rise in all regions of the world, even with significant gains in efficiency. Overall, global energy demand for transportation will rise by nearly 45 percent from 2010 to 2040.
