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'Passionate' electric car owners to drive growth, Shell says

Bloomberg News | about 24 hours ago |

Demand for electric cars will continue to surge irrespective of oil prices as consumers buy into a technology aimed at making driving fun while being environmentally friendly, according to Royal Dutch Shell Plc.“It’s a technology many of our customers like,” Istvan Kapitany, head of Shell’s global retail business, said in an interview in St. Petersburg, Russia. “They get a joy out of it, they feel passionate about it, they think it’s a great driving experience.”"“Customers don’t always make rational decisions, if it weren’t like that, it would be very difficult to sell sports cars” – Istvan Kapitany, head of Shell’s global retail business "Kapitany isn’t the first oil industry executive to highlight how the cool factor could play a big role in the spread of electric vehicles. BP Plc’s Chief Economist Spencer Dale said in 2016 that the technology could wipe out most of the projected growth in oil demand from cars in the next two decades if consumers embraced it enthusiastically — on a par with Apple Inc.’s iPhone.Social desirability is important enough for consumers to ignore that battery-powered technology is currently more expensive than internal combustion engines, Kapitany said.It may take until the middle of the next decade for the cost of electric vehicles, or EVs, and internal combustion engine technology to reach parity, according to Bloomberg NEF. Though EV sales have surged, they still make up only about 3 percent of all new cars sold globally but will rise to 55 percent by 2040..........Our time will come!