Surge in electric cars may blindside Big Oil: report

Paris

OIL companies underestimating the global market for electric vehicles could be caught unaware by weakened demand for petrol within a decade, analysts said Wednesday.

Falling costs of electric cars and renewable technology may halt growth in oil demand from as early as 2020, they argued in a report.

The current boom in electric vehicles is on track to displace two million barrels of oil per day by 2025, they calculated. A similar drop in demand preceded the collapse of oil prices in 2014.

By 2035, that figure could quintuple, with electric cars accounting for a third of the road transport market, said the report, issued by financial think tank Carbon Tracker and the Grantham Institute, both in Lo…