Anas Al-Hajji, editorial advisor for the specialized energy platform, energy economics expert, said that the spread of electric cars has not affected the global consumption of gasoline, which has witnessed a significant increase over the past period.
Drawt Al-Hajji, in a new episode of the program “Energy humanitiesHe presented it with a space on Twitter under the title “Oil Market Surprises… Do Not Stop”, to a lengthy report on 50 countries in the world, including Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, which showed surprising results, some of which were surprising.
He explained that the first thing is that the global demand for gasoline has reached its highest levels in history, despite the massive spread of electric cars, and despite all the austerity measures that followed the Russian-Ukrainian war.
global consumption of gasoline
Anas Al-Hajji, editor-in-chief of the energy platform, said that there is an increase in the demand for oil, which indicates that the talk about peaking demand in 2019 was wrong, because the demand for oil is still growing, but for gasoline and diesel in particular, they are related to the issue of cars. electrical.
He added that there are those who still insist that these clean cars are the end of oil, and constitute the end of the demand for gasoline, and they are betting on that, but there are impressive results that some of them will be unable to answer any questions related to it on this subject.
And he continued: “What will they say when they learn that the data confirms the high demand for gasoline in European countries during the first quarter of 2023, in a way that exceeded everyone’s expectations, until the matter came as a surprise, as the talk now is about countries that adopt electric cars heavily?”
He explained that the talk about increasing the demand for gasoline comes in countries that suffer from high inflation, and that prevented Russian oil, adding: “But the funny thing is that these countries – for fear of inflation – for the first time in a long time, provided very attractive fuel subsidies to their people, the rich and the poor therein.”
According to al-Hajji, these peoples were not greatly affected by the rise in oil or fuel prices, which contributed to the growth in demand for gasoline there, but there are other things, the first of which is that the current data, especially for February 2023, is high compared to others in some European countries.
Dr. Anas Al-Hajji pointed out that last February witnessed an increase in the demand for gasoline more than the previous January, and February 2022, as well as higher than the same period in 2019, before Corona, because the criterion now for the growth of oil demand is Back to 2019 levels.
And he added, “This matter confirms that despite the spread of electric cars, there is an increase in the demand for gasoline.”
Electric cars in Norway
Dr. Anas Al-Hajji referred to Norway as one of the European countries with the highest prevalence of electric cars and witnessing an increase in their sales, as the cars sold there are 90% of them electric.
He added, “This response is specific to the Arab youth who are dazzled by what the West is promoting, with regard to new technologies in climate change policies. Electric car sales in Norway are now 90%, meaning that every 1,000 cars sold, 900 of them are electric, but on the roads, we find that electric vehicles represent Only 20%.
And he continued: “The surprise is that Norway was also the highest in the world in demand for gasoline last February 2023, as the demand exceeded that of last January, as well as the demand recorded in February 2022, as well as the demand for oil in February 2022.” by 2.2%.
Al-Hajji explained that demand increased in this way despite the huge increase in electric car sales in Norway, for a very simple reason, which is the huge subsidies that the government provides to people to buy electric vehicles as a “second car” for short distances, and not as a substitute for long-distance petrol cars.
Al-Hajji said that the demand for automobile fuel in Norway has decreased since 2016 until now, and no one denies this, and the data is clear, but all international reports, including reports of the International Energy Agency, OPEC and Bloomberg, use certain equations for substitution.
He explained this by the fact that substitution means that when buying and using electric cars, the use here is of electricity, not gasoline, and therefore the substitution rate there is significant according to the rate used to measure the decrease in fuel consumption in Norway.
He pointed out that the decline in fuel consumption in Norway, specifically gasoline and diesel, must have declined at a rate of 4 times the current actual decline, which means that all existing reports strongly exaggerate the impact of electric cars on the decline in oil demand.
Electric cars and climate policies
Dr. Anas Al-Hajji, editor-in-chief of the specialized energy platform, said that the impact of electric cars on oil demand is now greatly exaggerated. The Norwegian government is complaining, because there are uncalculated effects of climate change policies on electric changes policies.
He added: “With the spread of electric cars, which kept pace with the closures of Corona, and for fear of countries that did not close, the number of users of public transportation decreased, so what happened to means of transportation such as buses and trains? They will move, whether they carry 20 passengers or 200, they will move in all cases, and from Then it will consume energy itself.”
But now, according to al-Hajji, those who were supposed to ride public transportation are using electric cars, and energy consumption has increased dramatically, which the Norwegian government has not calculated, which is asking people to stop their electric cars and take buses.
Al-Hajji explained that the problem now is that there are two types of growth globally, growth in income, especially in emerging and developing countries, which leads people to buy new cars, explaining that people in Africa and Latin America will buy gasoline and diesel cars, and in Brazil they will buy bio-fuel cars.
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