Huh, neat. There was this Twitter chap who said this was going to happen a few months ago. It was a fun interaction[0]:
> > > Just got word Mobil and Shell have informed Costco and Walmart they have no packaged product to send them and to expect bare shelves in the motor oil section in a few weeks
> > Lol as if youd be the first person anyone tells.
> I am Chevrons largest passenger vehicle lubricant purchaser lol
Suddenly I don't feel so stupid anymore for having a supply of motor oil on my garage shelf that rivals Elaine hoarding contraceptive sponges in Seinfeld.
If you follow motor oil geek on YouTube, they've started changing the formulations of the premium oils months ago and that's not going to change until 2028 when more American supply comes online
Things are really about to hit the fan. The world has been surviving off of strategic petroleum reserves, but those are quickly hitting the bottom. The US last reported at 285M barrels[0]. There is a legal floor of ~250M, after which it is reserved for government national defense. Usage has been all over the place, but the drawdown has been somewhere in the region of 1M barrels per day. Public analyses have said that the cavern integrity becomes threatened once levels fall below 300M. Current government claims the "real" floor is at 70M, but I believe this is a transparent ploy to assuage markets.
The Saudi pipeline that was attacked had a capacity of 7M barrels per day. Gone for who knows how long. That 7MBPD that needs to come from somewhere.
Edit: Should add - the big tankers require ~month to move oil to most consumers. So, there is one month of breathing room before the new pipeline loss materializes.
> There is a legal floor of ~250M, after which it is reserved for government national defense.
There is no "government national defense floor". As far as I can tell, this originates from someone misreading the SPR drawdown laws and then a bunch of people parroting it. The ~250M "floor" (really 252.4M) only applies for SPR drawdowns that aren't required by a severe energy supply interruption or to meet US obligations under the international energy program. Deciding what qualifies as a "severe energy supply interruption" is left up to the president. Essentially there's nothing stopping the president from emptying the reserve entirely. See sections d and h here: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title%3A42+section%...
> Public analyses have said that the cavern integrity becomes threatened once levels fall below 300M.
This isn't how the SPR works. They withdraw oil from it by pumping in water (oil floats on water, so the oil goes to the top). This means that the caverns won't cave in or something if there's too little oil, since they'll have the same volume inside them. What does wear out the SPR is drawing down at all, since the water erodes the caverns. The problem is cumulative, not caused by levels going below a certain point. There's a good article that goes over how the SPR works and its current status here if you're interested: https://files.gao.gov/reports/GAO-26-106918/index.html
The problem with drawdowns is they can and have compromised the structural integrity of the caverns used in the SPR. Like oil, they're a finite resource and should be used judiciously.
Either way it seems the US has somewhere from 1 to 8 months before accounting for reductions due to national considerations. That's concerning no matter how you frame it.
Thanks for the link, I didn't know very much about how this is implemented and now it's much clearer. I fully expect to see the same things I've just learned on a Youtube video or cable TV news some time from now when stuff goes badly wrong and it doesn't mesh with the simple "Huge metal tank somewhere" picture of such a reserve I'd imagine the average voter has.
Like Britain's ageing gas mains this feels like a measure which should have become irrelevant just as it would otherwise need renewing, a huge saving - but of course we (as a species) will always procrastinate so that was never going to happen. For the next 5-10 years Britain will continue replacing pipelines to deliver a fossil fuel (natural gas, methane, for heating) we should have long since stopped using but didn't.
> The Saudi pipeline that was attacked had a capacity of 7M barrels per day. Gone for who knows how long. That 7MBPD that needs to come from somewhere.
it probably depends on what exactly happened to the pipeline, but normally i'd expect this to be a short term disruption, as replacing a small segment isn't really that hard.
The real question is will it be struck over and over again.
What a great time to start a trade war with the largest oil exporter. Think there is a shortage now? Just think what happens when canada turns off the taps. Even the threat could trigger covid-style hoarding.
The trade war was claimed to be in part kicked off by a trade deficit - meaning Alberta is simultaneously a major cause of the trade war (by moving so much of their oil south for things refinement, and contributing to the trade imbalance), and a stumbling block for Canada to effectively fight back. Tariffs on Albertan oil will be looked at (by Albertans) as the Liberal PM hurting them out of malice, instead of a cudgel to fight back against Goliath
I'd love to see someone try to refute this as the obvious outcome given every decision Trump has made, especially in his second term where he has far less sane babysitters around him.
This is the "If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any" guy.
This is the guy calling for steep rate cuts in the midst of a serious inflation problem.
This is the guy that sabotages solar and wind power, intent on keeping us on oil and "clean coal" (lmao).
He's 80 years old and a malignant narcissist, he doesn't give a single fuck what happens to anyone after he's dead (and he knows that'll be pretty soon) as long as he gets what he thinks he wants today.
FWIW if I understand correctly what people say about Trump’s psychology, which if he is a malignant narcissist is a pretty complex maelstrom of instincts, he is actually at a disadvantage in imagining ever dying.
He will not be able to cope with the idea, or be able to rationally plan for it. Unlike other eighty year olds he is not thinking of a future without him in it; rather nobody else has any future without him.
So he is not acting nihilistically but desperately and grandiosely, as a way to deflect from the whole concept. I think there are many examples of this in recent months, but they are moderated by his inability to stay awake.
The oil that lubricates the combustion chambers and pistons gets burnt and filled with nasty combustion goop. An impressive amount of cleverness goes to minimizing this, but the oil that sees the combustion chambers still goes bad at many times the rate of any other lubricant.
Even on an ICE vehicle, you have transmission oil and differential oil and lubricants in your air conditioning compressor and brake hydraulics and grease smeared on CV joints and door mechanisms and pretty much everything else that moves. But you still talk about "changing THE oil" and mean the oil-that-sees-combustion specifically (along with, typically, the filter that fights the constant battle of getting the worst combustion products out of it). I personally think that makes it fair to say "EVs don't require oil changes" because even though they don't magically eliminate the other lubrication systems or the need to maintain them, they do eliminate the one that is so much more obnoxious than the rest that we commonly called it "THE oil change" before this was ever a debate.
It does, plenty of things inside the EV require all kinds of oils, just the maintenance cycle isn't gallons and gallons every x months. You are looking at years.
I got service centers trying to rotate my tires every 3k miles because "ev". The oil change as well, oh you need to change oil every 5k because... because why?
Engine oil is pretty much the only critical one because of the tolerances between the piston and the cylinder. Loose tolerances allow bypass (inefficiency), but tight tolerances require good lubrication (friction). Engine oil is also unique because it’s exposed to oxygen and combustion byproducts.
The other components just aren't as sensitive or exposed to as much abuse. Often, really only needing replacement if they’ve leaked out.
Not op, but brake fluid comes to mind, power steering fluid, transfer/reduction box. All depends on which ev you are talking about. Things like cv joints, axels and other rotating parts also require greases, again depending on make and model. Not that those need yearly replacement but they do need maintenance.
Brake fluid isn’t oil (generally speaking). EVs have electrical motor-driven power steering, not hydraulic. You scored correctly on the reduction box, which will need changing well after most people sell the car (>100K miles).
I find it hard to believe that someone somewhere isn't making an EV with a electric pump to supply a traditional hydraulic steering system. If I had to guess it would be Europe because they love electric over hydraulic steering.
Motor oil is a wear product with a lifespan. It will become saturated with microscopic particles of metal and end up with lower lubricity. You are just slowly grinding away all the metal off the moving parts. Eventually the tolerances will fail, usually a rod bearing, leading to self-destruction of the motor.
“I haven’t brushed my teeth, but I don’t have a cavity - so I’m good”.
Don’t get me wrong, my “fun” car (an old, beat up Jeep) is going on 2 years with the same oil (I barely drive it), but I known I need to change it soon.
Oil degrade with oxygen. Every time you drive that car, the oil are being re-oxygenated and continuing to degrade (along with being exposed to combustion byproducts).
Also, the type of wear you get often isn’t noticeable until it becomes catastrophic. In my case, a 30 year old car that’s already on its last legs “catastrophic” is more like “time to finally drag it to the scrap yard”.
They do have some gearbox oil that is usually considered to last a lifetime but some sources advise changing it every 100k miles or so. This is analogous to transmission fluid in an ICEV.
The seal between the piston and the cylinder isn't perfect, so when the engine runs combustion products will mix with the oil, making the oil eventually unusable. That's why ICE engines meed oil changes so often.
And in fact it is necessary for it to be imperfect, and the oil is what lubricates the interface. So it is necessarily exposed to lots of heat and pressure.
There is oil for the gearbox, but there's no scheduled maintenance for it at all, and in practice, people regularly get hundreds of thousands of miles without ever needing to think about it.
On a DSG gearbox the interval is 65k km. You should also change the transmission fluid in a regular automatic and a manual transmission. Some cars have a service interval for those transmissions and some don't. The "lifetime" oil statement is a lie.
There are plenty of things that still need oil and grease in EVs still, but it is in such low quantities that we could synthesize most of that from air and it still not being a cost of any concern.
I would imagine if there is oil in the electric motors that is “lifetime” but test really probably 300k miles, so if you drive the car into the ground, you probably would want to service that at some point, assuming they are serviceable without destruction.
The only significant oil is for the reduction gearbox, but as it doesn't change gears the wear is very low. First change will pull out some metal I'd guess, quality of machining dependent. Every 60000km/2Y, 1-2 litres.
Batteries may be immersed in a high dielectric thermal fluid, which will experience some breakdown but over a long time period, more than 10Y.
You’ve got parts with oil that have to be done every 10 years or are completely sealed into the part and are expected to last as long as the part does.
And idea like this is why EVs will still have poor depreciated values even if the battery holds up. Yes it is common for people to ignore all the non-powertrain maintenance items on cars before EVs, but at least in ICE half of them regularly dripped oil down its body and lines and still semi-regularly had somebody kicking the tires and shit when the oil was changed to try and sell you a repair before it fails.
Body, wheels, and suspension components all require maintenance. Just because those components have a less predictable maintenance schedule doesn't mean they don't crap out if problems aren't identified and taken care of. And unless you are driving a short range smart car, EVs weight more than most ICEs, which accelerates the wear and shortens the lifespan of many components.
Don't get me wrong, EVs should be more reliable than ICE still, but in my experiences motor and engine problems are rarely the death knell of a vehicle, body damage and rust are. There are always enough people crashing or junking their cars so that even less reliable motors can be easily had on the used market for cheap, if you don't just swap to something better to start with, but once you get significant body rust 95% of mechanics won't/can't deal with it and repairing metal body shell is a level of skill and tooling that most DIYs aren't going to even attempt.
I don’t understand this criticism. I have owned an EV for five years now. The app and the vehicle display clearly let you know when you are due for scheduled maintenance.
Due to how online the whole platform is, it’s so much better than my older ICE car that has a cryptic wrench light on the dash.
Did I mention that the intervals are also so much cheaper? Tires are the one standout but pretty much every thing else is a dream
Transmission/differential oil tends to last a very long time (150-400k, unit doesn’t matter). Automatics require relatively frequent oil changes in comparison, but they’re using the oil to transmit power.
Lots of greased parts, but again, the grease will last about as long as the part (mostly because the grease falling apart makes the part fail), which usually lasts the life of the car.
Bearings and shocks have grease, sure. But those things last decades after installation. They're probably two orders of magnitude lower in volume consumption than engine oil, which gets contaminated and disposed of at the rate of like a gallon or two per vehicle per month.
Like, the price differential is so high that the high end artisinal lubricant market is dominated by chemically synthesized products that aren't strictly petroleum at all (though many of the reagents used to manufacture them probably come out of the petrochemical world).
Correct. ~140k miles on my 2018 Model S, tires, wipers and wiper fluid, and one battery pack heater replaced (deprecated, no longer used in newer builds) are all that have been done. Motors are lubricated at manufacture and sealed for life.
I’m still on the original brake discs and rotors luckily but will likely need to replace them soon from corrosion and warping versus consumption. Which is very cool imho.
Not really. Most stuff is sealed for life. So it's more replacing whole parts when they fail than changing the oil in something. But many bearings will last hundreds of thousands of miles and never need changing for the entire life of the car. Quite amazing really.
He says "old iron", that could mean anything, but in my personal opinion it's probably for the best to bump up a weight once a car gets over 150k on the odometer. You get a little thicker film to compensate for wear, a bit higher viscosity to cut down on any leakage, and the same low temp performance.
I would not play around with it on anything with VVT, but it's a pretty common "hack" for pre-2010'ish motors and probably even a good idea.
I looked up the motor oil for my car; it's still about the price I would expect (high compared to US normal, not exorbitant) and allegedly available at the nearest branch of a large German retail car parts chain, as is the transmission oil.
... think I'll pick some up if they do indeed have it.
Our gasoline is well into the 2.20+ EUR/liter range, and diesel is even more.
Most often diesel engines (I used to be an auto mechanic). Even passenger car diesels can take 10+ quarts. Gas engines typically take less oil but big engines can still take 5-7+.
But that's an inline engine, right? I think a model based on engine layout, displacement/cylinder, and cylinder count might be quite good at predicting the necessary oil (and will tell you when your car uses a bit too much compared to everyone else).
It's not ergnomic nor designed around the human body or everyday experiences.
It started arbitrary. Then was defined as in terms of the wavelength of radiation from krypton-86. (the meter was 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of that particular transition to match the original arbitrary metal bar)
Then they based it on the distance light travels in an arbitrary amount of time (1/299,792,458 of a second).
These were all decidedly non-human scale measurements with no actual scientific basis. Yes they used scientific references, but theyre all arbitrary references.
I didn't say it was SI units, but it's easily convertible to them. Metric isn't magic, but it's a cohesive set of legos that can be transformed easily without requiring messy arithmetic and hard to memorise scale constants.
Are you not pretending people use the modern, most-precise definitions in the day-to-day just to give yourself a stab at claiming that Metric is awful? Non-metric would face the same dilemma when trying to establish units in a way that can be scientifically replicated. The counter point is that non-metric is so bad that people don't even bother using it in this endeavor ;)
> I guarantee you you would be able to adapt without any problem.
I guess it depends on how you define "problem". It took me years (probably a decade or so) to get good at estimating measurements. I would expect that to relearn how to estimate using metric units would take a decent portion of that (though probably not all). That is a very real cost to me if we were to adopt metric units. Meanwhile, metric also confers no benefit to me (ease of conversion math is irrelevant when I carry a calculator in my pocket, and I've learned the conversions I need in everyday life). So the cost-benefit analysis of switching to metric would be negative for my usage.
But more to the point, it's fucking rude to come in here as you did and call people "uncivilized" for something as petty and meaningless as which units of measurement they use.
Not everything has to be political. I live in Japan and raised SUV's with max-grip tires are all the rage here. Just total, 100% useless vanity that wastes fuel for nothing.
Flexing useless crap as a status symbol is as old as time
Lots of people haul things. The US is huge compared to what most people expect. Big trucks can be a necessity depending on what you do for a living/your way of life.
> Nearly 90 percent of truck buyers said they never use their truck for business towing, as a mobile office, or as a work site. Yet nearly 40 percent said they drive their truck strictly for pleasure at least once a week.
And these are self-reported numbers: what people say about their own behaviour(s).
> Big trucks can be a necessity depending on what you do for a living/your way of life.
For something like ~90% of pick-up owners that is grocery shopping and errands. As one headline put it, most folks don't need a pick-up truck but rather a cowboy costume:
> But, as it turns out, a significant portion of truck owners never use their trucks for these capabilities. According to Edwards’ data, 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less.
People would do better to buy a more fuel efficient vehicle, and use the money saved to rent a truck (or van) the few times a year they need those specific capabilities. They'd probably save money, and we'd probably have fewer dead people and children as well:
The vast majority of pickups are not actually used for workmen like purposes.
In fact, as carmakers have started pivoting more towards selling them to affluent suburban households, the usable cargo volume has decreased over time despite increasing size.
Things can be hauled just fine in an estate, saloon, or even a hatchback. European camper vans are regularly hauled by tiny Golfs or Polos with barely a litre of engine displacement and a hundred kilowatts of power.
Americans just buy much bigger vehicles than necessary.
My mother has rheumatics and she was looking at an SUV for her back. It gets more difficult for old people to climb into a tiny car- and for old people a car is a lifeline.
Lots of big cars are driven by small old ladies and it has nothing to do with vanity.
>Big trucks can be a necessity depending on what you do for a living/your way of life.
You might have missed this part. My round bales are 1000kg, and the field gets wet. How do I move the goats? How do I pull someone out of that ditch where the sign says 15mph but every winter they slide through my fence?
Grew up in farm country and on a (hobby) cattle farm, can confirm, the best tool for between two and three[1] of those is a tractor.
Though yes obviously if you have an actual working farm, in any capacity, you need a truck that can tow trailers with decent weight on them.
I have noticed truck ownership patterns vary with region, which may be why some people bristle at the notion that vanity-driven truck ownership is common. It's extremely common in the Midwest, city suburbs are full of people who bought an expensive truck either because that's the purchase that'll get them positive attention from their peers at work or in their friend group (and because other options for show-off cars might get them ribbing instead of kudos) or for aspirations they'll never fulfill ("yeah, I'll totally tow a boat to the lake every weekend! Maybe I'll even buy a fifth-wheel camper!" then they end up doing it like twice a year and never buy the camper). It's less common in (at least large parts of) the Northeast. The "I have a nice car people may comment positively on or otherwise approve of" purchases here swing more Volvo and Audi and such, even out in what the locals consider the "country" (it's... not, LOL).
[1] Where are the goats being hauled? Just on your property, between fields? To somewhere farther away? On roads? How far on roads? Truck still might be the wrong tool, or at least not better.
If you are really a farmer then I would expect you to have more sense than defending all the people who drive to their office job in their massive trucks.
Yes people on farms need big vehicles. We're not talking about them.
Right, but seeing trucks obviously not set up for towing or hauling is becoming more common nowadays. With the level of luxury trims available on some trucks now, it's obvious that they aren't a necessity anymore.
This is on top of trucks prioritizing 4 door models and taking bites out of the truck bed
Same trend here in NZ. People buying utes/trucks just because they want, not because they need. They're not as big as the American F150s etc, more a Toyota Hilux or Ford Ranger.
And they're often driven by reckless road ragers, often modified with uncertified suspension, bush lights turned on at night blinding oncoming traffic, and wheels extending past the fender flares. These vehicles are often financed to the hilt, so spending money on certifying the modifications is out of the picture, so a lot of these are not legal to drive on the roads.
Remember that the US is it's own market with different regulations and has a complicated history with imports, so no Hilux. Though it does look like the Ranger is externally the same between NZ and US. I'm not counting maybe 1mm as different.
I am somewhat familiar with a Ute since I've seen Subaru Bajas before. Not old enough to see Subaru Brats around or El Caminos.
It does seem like those people are emulating Americans though a lot of those mods are passable without certification, and it's up to a cop to pull over people using bush lights (they probably won't).
My comment wasn't necessarily to talk about model parity across markets - more to highlight the growing trend of people buying large utility vehicles with a tray as a fashion statement (for lack of a better term) than for its utility.
> "a lot of those mods are passable without certification"
Not true. Besides the bush lights, any changes in suspension and wheel size require a certification, with a LVVTA cert plate attached to the vehicle.
There is definitely a case of double standards with police enforcement. 'Boy racers' with modified coupes and sedans - typically lowered, with larger wheels - get way police scrutiny compared to utes with obviously illegal modifications like colored lights, and wheels jutting out past the fenders.
As someone who does not own an F150 (or any truck), I find myself frequently wishing I had a truck, and either borrowing a friend with a truck, renting a truck, or doing some really unsafe things with my hatchback while muttering with my wife that our next car with be a truck.
If we had a truck, what % of the time would we be using it for things that can only be done with a truck? Very little, since it would also be our daily driver, but even if just 1% of the time, it's 100% worth having a truck over some sedan (or a hatchback!)
Tbh as someone who does not drive or own a car regularly, I get by renting those U Haul vans (not trucks). It’s not expensive and it’s a hell of a lot more useful than a truck for doing the random heavy odd job.
As someone who until last year has only had (mostly sports) cars or motorbikes, I now have a ute and it’s awesome to be able to do ‘ute stuff’ with it. Carrying toolboxes, transporting large/heavy/dirty cargo, collecting firewood, going off-roading and camping. I use it way more than I thought I would.
Likewise with my Jeep Gladiator. I traveled, hauled and camped with it more than I ever expected.
The bed is only 5 feet long but I'm thinking of taking out part of the back seat for even more room .
I also used 4x4 in 4H mode more than I thought on bad roads even though I didn't go truly off-road that much so no need for 4L. I did take advantage of the higher wheel clearance and the more rugged suspension and the 8-speed manual shifting is useful going down mountain roads.
Can't be more than 1% at this point. The cleanest cars on the road, and the only rough terrain they face is climbing kerbs to bypass queues in traffic.
Lots of people haul things everywhere. Driving a truck as your main vehicle because you haul something twice a month is ridiculously wasteful, of money foremost.
I have a small trailer, rent a bigger one or van when needed.
Specifically, oil cooled Porsches take that much, because they have to fill the oil cooler at the front and the lines that lead to the engine at the back.
I've owned and driven V8 engine powered vehicles since the 1970's and have never owned one that used more than 7 qts of oil for an oil change. Most use 5 qts plus a filter. That is why oil is sold in 5 qt jugs. That's all that most vehicles need. Of course my vehicles are all model year 2015 or earlier.
I checked specs with different manufacturers and find that the V8 engines that need 10 qts of motor oil are the heavier duty trucks typically with a diesel engine. Checking specs shows that most gasoline V8s require 6 qts, some require 7-8 quarts, and the larger diesel trucks require 10 qts, sometimes up to 11 qts depending on the engine.
10 qts of motor oil takes up a lot of space and that is at a premium in most engine compartments. The oil pan would need to be deep and trucks are the only vehicles that have that much room between the engine block and the crossmembers/differentials.
FYI, $58 is the price delivered to your front door, it is cheaper in stores, and the mid $30's quoted old price was when on sale. I don't remember exactly but I can't imagine that 20 years ago I paid much less than $5 for a quart of synthetic.
I started buying some this year when Slickdeals would post something, whether it was from Amazon or closeouts at the auto parts stores. Even grabbed some $18 Walmart Supertech.
I realize the shortages you enumerated have different reasons , but a highly respectable French engineer, Jean-Marc Jancovici , has been repeating for years that we are heading into an inevitable age of "degrowth".
It is not an "if". It is now inevitable.
He is very pro alternative sources of energy but he clearly explains nothing can replace petroleum right now. Petroleum is used to build everything. Gas for your car. Your clothes. Plastic bags. Our beloved computers. Everything uses petroleum one way or another.
We are doomed.
I’m just happy I’m too old to go through all the bad times that are coming.
2030 could be the decade where nations all over the world realize that independent energy production that produce an overabundance of stable energy is critical to enable growth and prosperity, and thus will put a lot of money, people and political capital towards that goal. Fossil fuels was useful when it had a consistent cheap price and availability, but those properties has been quickly eroded.
You can definitely replace petroleum for many of the things you listed - or find alternative technologies that don’t require it.
You can live without plastic bags or plastic clothes for instance.
It’s just that a lot of companies (and people) get very rich from it and they invest A LOT into making sure that petroleum alternatives are not viable.
Of course there are some things were petroleum cant be easily substituted but I would argue the vast majority of use cases doesnt require it.
Energy is probably the most important and there it’s laughable easy to replace.
> You can definitely replace petroleum for many of the things you listed - or find alternative technologies that don’t require it. You can live without plastic bags or plastic clothes for instance.
Not really, not at this scale, or this price and convenience.
Most things you enjoy today are affordable because we have fossil fuels. The entire supply chain of every single product you can imagine is very dependent on fossil fuels. We're not even capable of making proper roads or tires without petroleum derivates, without these two alone nothing gets to you. Investigate a bit, you'll find petroleum and petroleum derivates a prerequisite of virtually everything.
Renewable energies look like a solved problem today with wind and solar, but it seems like everybody forgets that the entire supply chain to make them is 100% petrol dependant from mining raw materials to the final delivery. In a world without petrol these would be orders of magnitude more expensive, if even possible at all.
> Not really, not at this scale, or this price and convenience.
Not at this scale and price and convenience.
We can absolutely do so for higher prices. And with solar panels becoming more efficient, cheaper, and more ubiquitous with each passing year, we may find that a lot of those "higher prices" were really just "higher energy input costs", and we will be able to come very close to what we have now. (I don't know for sure—this isn't an area I keep abreast of.)
You might want to read the whole comment, renewables are only cheap now because every single step of their creation involves fossil fuels. Once everyone wants 60kg of lithium in their car and 100kg for they're home we'll quickly run into the exact same raw ressources problems.
If everything gets 10-100x harder and more expensive to make I can guarantee you the world will become a very different place.
You don't need to be some kind of super genius to understand this, if you have not been sucked in to the populist left wing propaganda about petroleum. We can't even replace petroleum for energy right now, let alone all its other uses.
It's not just oil we'll have issues with either, lots of minerals could easily see shortages and rapidly increasing costs to extract over this century.
> We are doomed.
More propaganda. We don't need infinite economic growth, infinite population growth, or even continued quality of life growth. Nothing bad even happens when you have degrowth, all other life forms have periods of growth and degrowth. It's all crazy propaganda that people repeat we need to constantly keep boosting up population numbers.
A few generations ago nobody on earth ever saw a motor car for the entire history of humanity. Or electricity. Antibiotics. Synthetic fertilizers. Any kind of plastic.
Things will change, people will adapt, conflict and famine, etc. Much the same as the rest of human history. The people of the future might no lot be able to expect to be clothed, fed, housed, and entertained in exchange for sitting around an air-conditioned office eating a birthday cake before putting in their solid 2.5 hours of work for the day drawing up the next draft of policies around who can use which bathroom before scrolling tiktok for the rest of the work day. But I wouldn't call that "doomed".
We're an energy civilization entirely built around fossil fuels, mostly petrol, on top of that we "optimized" everything to the max, which means any little inconvenience will now break several systems/sub systems.
We're about to realize what it means to have a globalized economy addicted to petrol
I saw this mentioned somewhere several weeks ago. I used my driving data and maintenance records and projected mileage forward two years for each vehicle and bought the amount of oil I would need to service each vehicle for two years of driving at current monthly mileage rates. I already had transmission fluid for all of them and serviced differentials (usually something you do above 100000 miles) so I won't need other oil products for a while. Good luck y'all.
Now I wait for the inevitable switch to EVs to create discounts on ICE vehicles as people finally get the message that EV is the future. I will buy the pickup I need at a discount to today's prices as that shift gets going.
Huh, neat. There was this Twitter chap who said this was going to happen a few months ago. It was a fun interaction[0]:
> > > Just got word Mobil and Shell have informed Costco and Walmart they have no packaged product to send them and to expect bare shelves in the motor oil section in a few weeks
> > Lol as if youd be the first person anyone tells.
> I am Chevrons largest passenger vehicle lubricant purchaser lol
0: https://x.com/CostaKapo/status/2053948679485009990?s=20
Suddenly I don't feel so stupid anymore for having a supply of motor oil on my garage shelf that rivals Elaine hoarding contraceptive sponges in Seinfeld.
Now when your friends call you have to decide if they're oil-worthy
I think they made a movie about that
Time to grow some gills and dive for sunken oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. . .
This could go so many directions
Everybody loves the sponge
If you follow motor oil geek on YouTube, they've started changing the formulations of the premium oils months ago and that's not going to change until 2028 when more American supply comes online
IIRC there were also posts about this in the shortages subreddit around the same time.
I saw this tweet[1] the day after.
I go every week and saw shelves were full, but bought a years supply for our cars just in case...
https://x.com/GeorgeRoush/status/2054364409812918502
I remember some panic and thinking I’ll just hope for the best.
With modern synthetics and my driving patterns, that is 1 jug for one of my cars, and 2 jugs for the other.
Maybe now wouldn’t be the worst time. It isn’t a lot of space wasted if I didn’t need it.
Wouldn't panic buying increase the problem for everyone else? Just like toilet paper in 2020?
Things are really about to hit the fan. The world has been surviving off of strategic petroleum reserves, but those are quickly hitting the bottom. The US last reported at 285M barrels[0]. There is a legal floor of ~250M, after which it is reserved for government national defense. Usage has been all over the place, but the drawdown has been somewhere in the region of 1M barrels per day. Public analyses have said that the cavern integrity becomes threatened once levels fall below 300M. Current government claims the "real" floor is at 70M, but I believe this is a transparent ploy to assuage markets.
The Saudi pipeline that was attacked had a capacity of 7M barrels per day. Gone for who knows how long. That 7MBPD that needs to come from somewhere.
Edit: Should add - the big tankers require ~month to move oil to most consumers. So, there is one month of breathing room before the new pipeline loss materializes.
[0] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=W...
> There is a legal floor of ~250M, after which it is reserved for government national defense.
There is no "government national defense floor". As far as I can tell, this originates from someone misreading the SPR drawdown laws and then a bunch of people parroting it. The ~250M "floor" (really 252.4M) only applies for SPR drawdowns that aren't required by a severe energy supply interruption or to meet US obligations under the international energy program. Deciding what qualifies as a "severe energy supply interruption" is left up to the president. Essentially there's nothing stopping the president from emptying the reserve entirely. See sections d and h here: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title%3A42+section%...
> Public analyses have said that the cavern integrity becomes threatened once levels fall below 300M.
This isn't how the SPR works. They withdraw oil from it by pumping in water (oil floats on water, so the oil goes to the top). This means that the caverns won't cave in or something if there's too little oil, since they'll have the same volume inside them. What does wear out the SPR is drawing down at all, since the water erodes the caverns. The problem is cumulative, not caused by levels going below a certain point. There's a good article that goes over how the SPR works and its current status here if you're interested: https://files.gao.gov/reports/GAO-26-106918/index.html
The problem with drawdowns is they can and have compromised the structural integrity of the caverns used in the SPR. Like oil, they're a finite resource and should be used judiciously.
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/2585591
I love that you think the current administration will actually consider this when deciding whether or not to suck it dry anyway.
Belief in science is a prerequisite.
Either way it seems the US has somewhere from 1 to 8 months before accounting for reductions due to national considerations. That's concerning no matter how you frame it.
What's the outlook for the other major economies?
Thanks for the link, I didn't know very much about how this is implemented and now it's much clearer. I fully expect to see the same things I've just learned on a Youtube video or cable TV news some time from now when stuff goes badly wrong and it doesn't mesh with the simple "Huge metal tank somewhere" picture of such a reserve I'd imagine the average voter has.
Like Britain's ageing gas mains this feels like a measure which should have become irrelevant just as it would otherwise need renewing, a huge saving - but of course we (as a species) will always procrastinate so that was never going to happen. For the next 5-10 years Britain will continue replacing pipelines to deliver a fossil fuel (natural gas, methane, for heating) we should have long since stopped using but didn't.
The caverns have salt walls. The water erodes the salt caverns.
> The Saudi pipeline that was attacked had a capacity of 7M barrels per day. Gone for who knows how long. That 7MBPD that needs to come from somewhere.
it probably depends on what exactly happened to the pipeline, but normally i'd expect this to be a short term disruption, as replacing a small segment isn't really that hard.
The real question is will it be struck over and over again.
It’s doubly bad now China is back buying oil.
Not at volume yet. How quickly they return and what volumes will determine how fast oil prices go up.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49368661
(oil futures market participant)
What a great time to start a trade war with the largest oil exporter. Think there is a shortage now? Just think what happens when canada turns off the taps. Even the threat could trigger covid-style hoarding.
Our oil travels across our country via the USA. We also depend heavily on USA refining in certain provinces. This will never happen.
The trade war was claimed to be in part kicked off by a trade deficit - meaning Alberta is simultaneously a major cause of the trade war (by moving so much of their oil south for things refinement, and contributing to the trade imbalance), and a stumbling block for Canada to effectively fight back. Tariffs on Albertan oil will be looked at (by Albertans) as the Liberal PM hurting them out of malice, instead of a cudgel to fight back against Goliath
It isnt just oil. The us also buys most/all of its natural gas import from Canada. That stuff isnt refined.
Trump will 100% ignore the defense reserve. Congress won't stop him either.
Expect many “court finds that Trump …” headlines with zero consequence.
> Trump will 100% ignore the defense reserve.
I'd love to see someone try to refute this as the obvious outcome given every decision Trump has made, especially in his second term where he has far less sane babysitters around him.
This is the "If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any" guy.
This is the guy calling for steep rate cuts in the midst of a serious inflation problem.
This is the guy that sabotages solar and wind power, intent on keeping us on oil and "clean coal" (lmao).
He's 80 years old and a malignant narcissist, he doesn't give a single fuck what happens to anyone after he's dead (and he knows that'll be pretty soon) as long as he gets what he thinks he wants today.
> Congress won't stop him either.
Also something that proves out daily.
FWIW if I understand correctly what people say about Trump’s psychology, which if he is a malignant narcissist is a pretty complex maelstrom of instincts, he is actually at a disadvantage in imagining ever dying.
He will not be able to cope with the idea, or be able to rationally plan for it. Unlike other eighty year olds he is not thinking of a future without him in it; rather nobody else has any future without him.
So he is not acting nihilistically but desperately and grandiosely, as a way to deflect from the whole concept. I think there are many examples of this in recent months, but they are moderated by his inability to stay awake.
Not having to deal with oil changes is one of the many benefits of driving an EV
Is there really nothing that has oil in it that at some point needs changing?
The oil that lubricates the combustion chambers and pistons gets burnt and filled with nasty combustion goop. An impressive amount of cleverness goes to minimizing this, but the oil that sees the combustion chambers still goes bad at many times the rate of any other lubricant.
Even on an ICE vehicle, you have transmission oil and differential oil and lubricants in your air conditioning compressor and brake hydraulics and grease smeared on CV joints and door mechanisms and pretty much everything else that moves. But you still talk about "changing THE oil" and mean the oil-that-sees-combustion specifically (along with, typically, the filter that fights the constant battle of getting the worst combustion products out of it). I personally think that makes it fair to say "EVs don't require oil changes" because even though they don't magically eliminate the other lubrication systems or the need to maintain them, they do eliminate the one that is so much more obnoxious than the rest that we commonly called it "THE oil change" before this was ever a debate.
The other systems see less wear and tear as well ... Brakes don't get as hot, transmissions don't have clutches shedding material, and so on.
It does, plenty of things inside the EV require all kinds of oils, just the maintenance cycle isn't gallons and gallons every x months. You are looking at years.
I got service centers trying to rotate my tires every 3k miles because "ev". The oil change as well, oh you need to change oil every 5k because... because why?
By "plenty of things" you mean one thing with a 10yr service interval?
Engine oil is pretty much the only critical one because of the tolerances between the piston and the cylinder. Loose tolerances allow bypass (inefficiency), but tight tolerances require good lubrication (friction). Engine oil is also unique because it’s exposed to oxygen and combustion byproducts.
The other components just aren't as sensitive or exposed to as much abuse. Often, really only needing replacement if they’ve leaked out.
plenty of things inside the EV require all kinds of oils
I can come up with one. What's your list?
Not op, but brake fluid comes to mind, power steering fluid, transfer/reduction box. All depends on which ev you are talking about. Things like cv joints, axels and other rotating parts also require greases, again depending on make and model. Not that those need yearly replacement but they do need maintenance.
Brake fluid isn’t oil (generally speaking). EVs have electrical motor-driven power steering, not hydraulic. You scored correctly on the reduction box, which will need changing well after most people sell the car (>100K miles).
I find it hard to believe that someone somewhere isn't making an EV with a electric pump to supply a traditional hydraulic steering system. If I had to guess it would be Europe because they love electric over hydraulic steering.
Now you have me wondering if our OG Leaf didn’t work that way, as I have this vague memory that maybe it did.
EDIT: nope, that is definitely an electric motor on the top of that 2011 Leaf steering rack:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/254589825844
It’s hydraulic fluid, which is oil. It’s not formulated the same as engine oil, but it’s not far off gear oil.
It’s hydraulic fluid, which is oil.
Nope, glycol-based and synthetic. Not the best article, but best I could find at the moment:
https://engineerfix.com/what-is-brake-fluid-made-of/
For any car there will also be the periodic service bulletin so every once in a while you'll likely want to go in and deal with those too.
Bought a old Nissan juke in 2021 - built in 2011.
Haven't had to change or refill oil once.
Ymmv
Motor oil is a wear product with a lifespan. It will become saturated with microscopic particles of metal and end up with lower lubricity. You are just slowly grinding away all the metal off the moving parts. Eventually the tolerances will fail, usually a rod bearing, leading to self-destruction of the motor.
Probably time to change the oil.
“I haven’t brushed my teeth, but I don’t have a cavity - so I’m good”.
Don’t get me wrong, my “fun” car (an old, beat up Jeep) is going on 2 years with the same oil (I barely drive it), but I known I need to change it soon.
Oil degrade with oxygen. Every time you drive that car, the oil are being re-oxygenated and continuing to degrade (along with being exposed to combustion byproducts).
Also, the type of wear you get often isn’t noticeable until it becomes catastrophic. In my case, a 30 year old car that’s already on its last legs “catastrophic” is more like “time to finally drag it to the scrap yard”.
I mean technically you never need to change the oil on any car if you're willing to just drive it into the ground.
I wonder how long a full synthetic could run in an engine that, for whatever reason, doesn’t push oil hard. 20k miles?
There is a YouTube channel sponsored by people like you:
https://youtube.com/@i_do_cars
They do have some gearbox oil that is usually considered to last a lifetime but some sources advise changing it every 100k miles or so. This is analogous to transmission fluid in an ICEV.
The seal between the piston and the cylinder isn't perfect, so when the engine runs combustion products will mix with the oil, making the oil eventually unusable. That's why ICE engines meed oil changes so often.
And in fact it is necessary for it to be imperfect, and the oil is what lubricates the interface. So it is necessarily exposed to lots of heat and pressure.
There is oil for the gearbox, but there's no scheduled maintenance for it at all, and in practice, people regularly get hundreds of thousands of miles without ever needing to think about it.
On a DSG gearbox the interval is 65k km. You should also change the transmission fluid in a regular automatic and a manual transmission. Some cars have a service interval for those transmissions and some don't. The "lifetime" oil statement is a lie.
It refers to the design lifetime of the vehicle. Usually accurate. Mileages may vary.
There are plenty of things that still need oil and grease in EVs still, but it is in such low quantities that we could synthesize most of that from air and it still not being a cost of any concern.
I would imagine if there is oil in the electric motors that is “lifetime” but test really probably 300k miles, so if you drive the car into the ground, you probably would want to service that at some point, assuming they are serviceable without destruction.
There's no oil in electric motors.
The only significant oil is for the reduction gearbox, but as it doesn't change gears the wear is very low. First change will pull out some metal I'd guess, quality of machining dependent. Every 60000km/2Y, 1-2 litres.
Batteries may be immersed in a high dielectric thermal fluid, which will experience some breakdown but over a long time period, more than 10Y.
> There's no oil in electric motors.
Many EVs use hybrid water/oil cooling, typically water for the stator and oil mist/spray for the rotor and exposed parts of the windings.
Playing with semantics. Oil isn't lubricating anything. There is grease in the bearings and the gearbox.
You’ve got parts with oil that have to be done every 10 years or are completely sealed into the part and are expected to last as long as the part does.
Nope. I've had a Model 3 since 2018 and besides swapping out tires and window washer fluid, no maintenance.
There was suggested battery fluid maintenance when I first got the car every 3 years or so, but they removed that recommendation.
It's one of the reasons I just can't go back to a regular gas car.
And idea like this is why EVs will still have poor depreciated values even if the battery holds up. Yes it is common for people to ignore all the non-powertrain maintenance items on cars before EVs, but at least in ICE half of them regularly dripped oil down its body and lines and still semi-regularly had somebody kicking the tires and shit when the oil was changed to try and sell you a repair before it fails.
Body, wheels, and suspension components all require maintenance. Just because those components have a less predictable maintenance schedule doesn't mean they don't crap out if problems aren't identified and taken care of. And unless you are driving a short range smart car, EVs weight more than most ICEs, which accelerates the wear and shortens the lifespan of many components.
Don't get me wrong, EVs should be more reliable than ICE still, but in my experiences motor and engine problems are rarely the death knell of a vehicle, body damage and rust are. There are always enough people crashing or junking their cars so that even less reliable motors can be easily had on the used market for cheap, if you don't just swap to something better to start with, but once you get significant body rust 95% of mechanics won't/can't deal with it and repairing metal body shell is a level of skill and tooling that most DIYs aren't going to even attempt.
I don’t understand this criticism. I have owned an EV for five years now. The app and the vehicle display clearly let you know when you are due for scheduled maintenance.
Due to how online the whole platform is, it’s so much better than my older ICE car that has a cryptic wrench light on the dash.
Did I mention that the intervals are also so much cheaper? Tires are the one standout but pretty much every thing else is a dream
Yeah, but the intervals are much longer.
Surely at some point, but it hasn’t yet happened in my short 3 years owning one
The biggest one that needs changing would be the differential.
There is not. Just brake and washer fluid and coolant.
Nothing that matters on "people who drive new cars" timelines.
Like yeah there's probably some box with gear oil might get a little nasty after 100-200k but gears are pretty hardy and don't demand all that much.
There’s still gearbox oil, diff oil, and brake fluid. These last far longer and are far smaller volumes than engine oil, though.
Transmission/differential oil tends to last a very long time (150-400k, unit doesn’t matter). Automatics require relatively frequent oil changes in comparison, but they’re using the oil to transmit power. Lots of greased parts, but again, the grease will last about as long as the part (mostly because the grease falling apart makes the part fail), which usually lasts the life of the car.
Bearings and shocks have grease, sure. But those things last decades after installation. They're probably two orders of magnitude lower in volume consumption than engine oil, which gets contaminated and disposed of at the rate of like a gallon or two per vehicle per month.
Like, the price differential is so high that the high end artisinal lubricant market is dominated by chemically synthesized products that aren't strictly petroleum at all (though many of the reagents used to manufacture them probably come out of the petrochemical world).
Correct. ~140k miles on my 2018 Model S, tires, wipers and wiper fluid, and one battery pack heater replaced (deprecated, no longer used in newer builds) are all that have been done. Motors are lubricated at manufacture and sealed for life.
https://ev-lectron.com/blogs/blog/tesla-electric-vehicle-pow...
Same here. Got a 2017 Model S. Only wiper fluid and tires and had to change out break disks in the front but besides that, nothing.
I’m still on the original brake discs and rotors luckily but will likely need to replace them soon from corrosion and warping versus consumption. Which is very cool imho.
Not really. Most stuff is sealed for life. So it's more replacing whole parts when they fail than changing the oil in something. But many bearings will last hundreds of thousands of miles and never need changing for the entire life of the car. Quite amazing really.
This is because of the Pearl refinery in Qatar going offline after being attacked by Iran. That was the source of a lot of synthetic oil base stock.
My son bought 144 bottles of Castrol 10w40 on closeout for $110. This was 2 or 3 years ago. We drive old iron and have been steadily using them up.
What felt like a wall in our garage now feels like a security blanket.
Kind of an odd viscosity unless you have classic cars or live in a hot climate
He says "old iron", that could mean anything, but in my personal opinion it's probably for the best to bump up a weight once a car gets over 150k on the odometer. You get a little thicker film to compensate for wear, a bit higher viscosity to cut down on any leakage, and the same low temp performance.
I would not play around with it on anything with VVT, but it's a pretty common "hack" for pre-2010'ish motors and probably even a good idea.
Florida. 89 Dodge p/u, 92 Buick, 96 Toyota and my son daily drives a 63 Dart. We have a 61 Sunliner I drive when the weather cools down.
20 qts every 7 days is far more than any home consumer needs -- this must be to prevent shops from just buying out their entire stock.
I wonder if this will change how often people in the USA change their oil.
Comparing BMWs (which are worldwide cars), the oil change intervals in Europe are literally 2x what they are in the USA.
E.g. my previous 2019 M240i (B58 i6):
Europe: every 30,000km or 2 years, whatever comes first.
USA: every 15,000km (~9,000 miles) or 1 year, whatever comes first.
I get that fuel is dirtier in the USA. I get that engines work harder in the USA because of the heat, but a 2x reduction in lifetime?
And this is applicable to ALL the BMWs I've seen.
YouTube channel Regular Car Reviews also predicted this ca 3 months ago.
So now it's here. Or.. there? How's the situation in the EU?
I looked up the motor oil for my car; it's still about the price I would expect (high compared to US normal, not exorbitant) and allegedly available at the nearest branch of a large German retail car parts chain, as is the transmission oil.
... think I'll pick some up if they do indeed have it.
Our gasoline is well into the 2.20+ EUR/liter range, and diesel is even more.
What kind of vehicle takes 10 quarts of oil for a single oil change?
Most often diesel engines (I used to be an auto mechanic). Even passenger car diesels can take 10+ quarts. Gas engines typically take less oil but big engines can still take 5-7+.
I remember using a large Jerry can of oil to top off a MATV. Google says 19-28 quart capacity- oof!
That's 11.3L for the civilised audience.
For reference, my 3.6L 6-cyl boxer needs about 6.5L according to my service notes.
I can't edit this now, but,
10 US Quarts (9.46L) are not the same as 10 Quarts (11.36L). Good job there!
My 3 cylinder 1.0 litre Citroen takes exactly half that. Interesting.
But that's an inline engine, right? I think a model based on engine layout, displacement/cylinder, and cylinder count might be quite good at predicting the necessary oil (and will tell you when your car uses a bit too much compared to everyone else).
You’d need year of manufacture too. There’s been a trend towards larger oil capacities in order to increase service intervals.
Umm, no? A liter is slightly larger than a quart, so 10 quarts is about 9.5L.
For reference, did you mess this up yourself or did it require AI?
Great, to make Imperial even better there's the British Imperial units, but the colonies came up with their own version of it.
So, same as with pints, the British quarts are not the same as the American ones.
https://noai.duckduckgo.com/?q=10quarts+to+liters defaults to "Quart (Imperial)" to me.
Liters are not SI units.
Metric isn't magic.
It's not ergnomic nor designed around the human body or everyday experiences.
It started arbitrary. Then was defined as in terms of the wavelength of radiation from krypton-86. (the meter was 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of that particular transition to match the original arbitrary metal bar)
Then they based it on the distance light travels in an arbitrary amount of time (1/299,792,458 of a second).
These were all decidedly non-human scale measurements with no actual scientific basis. Yes they used scientific references, but theyre all arbitrary references.
I didn't say it was SI units, but it's easily convertible to them. Metric isn't magic, but it's a cohesive set of legos that can be transformed easily without requiring messy arithmetic and hard to memorise scale constants.
Are you not pretending people use the modern, most-precise definitions in the day-to-day just to give yourself a stab at claiming that Metric is awful? Non-metric would face the same dilemma when trying to establish units in a way that can be scientifically replicated. The counter point is that non-metric is so bad that people don't even bother using it in this endeavor ;)
> I guarantee you you would be able to adapt without any problem.
I guess it depends on how you define "problem". It took me years (probably a decade or so) to get good at estimating measurements. I would expect that to relearn how to estimate using metric units would take a decent portion of that (though probably not all). That is a very real cost to me if we were to adopt metric units. Meanwhile, metric also confers no benefit to me (ease of conversion math is irrelevant when I carry a calculator in my pocket, and I've learned the conversions I need in everyday life). So the cost-benefit analysis of switching to metric would be negative for my usage.
But more to the point, it's fucking rude to come in here as you did and call people "uncivilized" for something as petty and meaningless as which units of measurement they use.
(he meant to reply to a sibling comment)
Virtually the entire world but the US is using metric. I guarantee you you would be able to adapt without any problem
Patriots love their big trucks. More oil = owning the lib vegans.
Not everything has to be political. I live in Japan and raised SUV's with max-grip tires are all the rage here. Just total, 100% useless vanity that wastes fuel for nothing.
Flexing useless crap as a status symbol is as old as time
Lots of people haul things. The US is huge compared to what most people expect. Big trucks can be a necessity depending on what you do for a living/your way of life.
> Lots of people haul things.
Not with pick-up trucks they don't:
> Nearly 90 percent of truck buyers said they never use their truck for business towing, as a mobile office, or as a work site. Yet nearly 40 percent said they drive their truck strictly for pleasure at least once a week.
* https://www.carscoops.com/2025/11/capability-by-numbers-what...
* https://www.powernationtv.com/post/most-pickup-truck-owners-...
And these are self-reported numbers: what people say about their own behaviour(s).
> Big trucks can be a necessity depending on what you do for a living/your way of life.
For something like ~90% of pick-up owners that is grocery shopping and errands. As one headline put it, most folks don't need a pick-up truck but rather a cowboy costume:
> But, as it turns out, a significant portion of truck owners never use their trucks for these capabilities. According to Edwards’ data, 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less.
* https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...
People would do better to buy a more fuel efficient vehicle, and use the money saved to rent a truck (or van) the few times a year they need those specific capabilities. They'd probably save money, and we'd probably have fewer dead people and children as well:
* https://carbuzz.com/news/the-abrams-m1-tank-has-better-visib...
The vast majority of pickups are not actually used for workmen like purposes.
In fact, as carmakers have started pivoting more towards selling them to affluent suburban households, the usable cargo volume has decreased over time despite increasing size.
Things can be hauled just fine in an estate, saloon, or even a hatchback. European camper vans are regularly hauled by tiny Golfs or Polos with barely a litre of engine displacement and a hundred kilowatts of power.
Americans just buy much bigger vehicles than necessary.
My mother has rheumatics and she was looking at an SUV for her back. It gets more difficult for old people to climb into a tiny car- and for old people a car is a lifeline. Lots of big cars are driven by small old ladies and it has nothing to do with vanity.
>Big trucks can be a necessity depending on what you do for a living/your way of life.
You might have missed this part. My round bales are 1000kg, and the field gets wet. How do I move the goats? How do I pull someone out of that ditch where the sign says 15mph but every winter they slide through my fence?
A tractor, probably.
Grew up in farm country and on a (hobby) cattle farm, can confirm, the best tool for between two and three[1] of those is a tractor.
Though yes obviously if you have an actual working farm, in any capacity, you need a truck that can tow trailers with decent weight on them.
I have noticed truck ownership patterns vary with region, which may be why some people bristle at the notion that vanity-driven truck ownership is common. It's extremely common in the Midwest, city suburbs are full of people who bought an expensive truck either because that's the purchase that'll get them positive attention from their peers at work or in their friend group (and because other options for show-off cars might get them ribbing instead of kudos) or for aspirations they'll never fulfill ("yeah, I'll totally tow a boat to the lake every weekend! Maybe I'll even buy a fifth-wheel camper!" then they end up doing it like twice a year and never buy the camper). It's less common in (at least large parts of) the Northeast. The "I have a nice car people may comment positively on or otherwise approve of" purchases here swing more Volvo and Audi and such, even out in what the locals consider the "country" (it's... not, LOL).
[1] Where are the goats being hauled? Just on your property, between fields? To somewhere farther away? On roads? How far on roads? Truck still might be the wrong tool, or at least not better.
With anything but an F350. How did farmers do anything before Ford saved them with the worst trucks to ever exist, truly a wonder.
If you are really a farmer then I would expect you to have more sense than defending all the people who drive to their office job in their massive trucks.
Yes people on farms need big vehicles. We're not talking about them.
Right, but seeing trucks obviously not set up for towing or hauling is becoming more common nowadays. With the level of luxury trims available on some trucks now, it's obvious that they aren't a necessity anymore.
This is on top of trucks prioritizing 4 door models and taking bites out of the truck bed
Same trend here in NZ. People buying utes/trucks just because they want, not because they need. They're not as big as the American F150s etc, more a Toyota Hilux or Ford Ranger.
And they're often driven by reckless road ragers, often modified with uncertified suspension, bush lights turned on at night blinding oncoming traffic, and wheels extending past the fender flares. These vehicles are often financed to the hilt, so spending money on certifying the modifications is out of the picture, so a lot of these are not legal to drive on the roads.
Remember that the US is it's own market with different regulations and has a complicated history with imports, so no Hilux. Though it does look like the Ranger is externally the same between NZ and US. I'm not counting maybe 1mm as different.
I am somewhat familiar with a Ute since I've seen Subaru Bajas before. Not old enough to see Subaru Brats around or El Caminos.
It does seem like those people are emulating Americans though a lot of those mods are passable without certification, and it's up to a cop to pull over people using bush lights (they probably won't).
My comment wasn't necessarily to talk about model parity across markets - more to highlight the growing trend of people buying large utility vehicles with a tray as a fashion statement (for lack of a better term) than for its utility.
> "a lot of those mods are passable without certification" Not true. Besides the bush lights, any changes in suspension and wheel size require a certification, with a LVVTA cert plate attached to the vehicle.
There is definitely a case of double standards with police enforcement. 'Boy racers' with modified coupes and sedans - typically lowered, with larger wheels - get way police scrutiny compared to utes with obviously illegal modifications like colored lights, and wheels jutting out past the fenders.
My bad, I meant in the US.
What do you think is the % of people having F150 that really do need F150?
As someone who does not own an F150 (or any truck), I find myself frequently wishing I had a truck, and either borrowing a friend with a truck, renting a truck, or doing some really unsafe things with my hatchback while muttering with my wife that our next car with be a truck.
If we had a truck, what % of the time would we be using it for things that can only be done with a truck? Very little, since it would also be our daily driver, but even if just 1% of the time, it's 100% worth having a truck over some sedan (or a hatchback!)
Tbh as someone who does not drive or own a car regularly, I get by renting those U Haul vans (not trucks). It’s not expensive and it’s a hell of a lot more useful than a truck for doing the random heavy odd job.
As someone who until last year has only had (mostly sports) cars or motorbikes, I now have a ute and it’s awesome to be able to do ‘ute stuff’ with it. Carrying toolboxes, transporting large/heavy/dirty cargo, collecting firewood, going off-roading and camping. I use it way more than I thought I would.
Likewise with my Jeep Gladiator. I traveled, hauled and camped with it more than I ever expected.
The bed is only 5 feet long but I'm thinking of taking out part of the back seat for even more room .
I also used 4x4 in 4H mode more than I thought on bad roads even though I didn't go truly off-road that much so no need for 4L. I did take advantage of the higher wheel clearance and the more rugged suspension and the 8-speed manual shifting is useful going down mountain roads.
Can't be more than 1% at this point. The cleanest cars on the road, and the only rough terrain they face is climbing kerbs to bypass queues in traffic.
What % of people who have wealth really need that wealth?
Not sure I follow.
Apart from feigned ignorance, a common trope is arguing X vehicle isn’t used optimally in a way they agree with and thus isn’t necessary to own.
I was pointing out the logical destination of this.
That may be true. However it does not explain how many people have big trucks that are never used as trucks
they want big vehicles to carry their big ego
Lots of people haul things everywhere. Driving a truck as your main vehicle because you haul something twice a month is ridiculously wasteful, of money foremost.
I have a small trailer, rent a bigger one or van when needed.
My BMW M8 with the S63TU4 4.4L V8 takes 10 liters.
Previous one one which had a B58 took 7 liters.
The 3L diesel in my car takes about 8qt per change. The 5.9L diesel in my truck takes 12qt.
2018+ Ford Mustang V8 for one.
GM V8's take 8 quarts
Older Porsche 911s take about 11 quarts.
Specifically, oil cooled Porsches take that much, because they have to fill the oil cooler at the front and the lines that lead to the engine at the back.
most of V8 engines need 10+ quarts
I've owned and driven V8 engine powered vehicles since the 1970's and have never owned one that used more than 7 qts of oil for an oil change. Most use 5 qts plus a filter. That is why oil is sold in 5 qt jugs. That's all that most vehicles need. Of course my vehicles are all model year 2015 or earlier.
I checked specs with different manufacturers and find that the V8 engines that need 10 qts of motor oil are the heavier duty trucks typically with a diesel engine. Checking specs shows that most gasoline V8s require 6 qts, some require 7-8 quarts, and the larger diesel trucks require 10 qts, sometimes up to 11 qts depending on the engine.
10 qts of motor oil takes up a lot of space and that is at a premium in most engine compartments. The oil pan would need to be deep and trucks are the only vehicles that have that much room between the engine block and the crossmembers/differentials.
I own BMW and all BMW V8s (engine models N63, N63TU..N63TU3, S63) require 10 quarts.
Same for Mercedes V8 engines models M156..159 that require 9-10 quarts
Diesel trucks. My Ram 1500 with the 5.7 Hemi takes 7 qt. The 5.9 Cummins in my Ram 2500 takes 12 qts.
Air cooled 911 :)
Cessnas.
Most v8s.
FYI, $58 is the price delivered to your front door, it is cheaper in stores, and the mid $30's quoted old price was when on sale. I don't remember exactly but I can't imagine that 20 years ago I paid much less than $5 for a quart of synthetic.
I started buying some this year when Slickdeals would post something, whether it was from Amazon or closeouts at the auto parts stores. Even grabbed some $18 Walmart Supertech.
Ram Shortage, SSD shortage, CPU shortage, GPU shortage, diesel shortage, now motor oil shortage.......
Are we going to have shortage of everything now ......
I realize the shortages you enumerated have different reasons , but a highly respectable French engineer, Jean-Marc Jancovici , has been repeating for years that we are heading into an inevitable age of "degrowth".
It is not an "if". It is now inevitable.
He is very pro alternative sources of energy but he clearly explains nothing can replace petroleum right now. Petroleum is used to build everything. Gas for your car. Your clothes. Plastic bags. Our beloved computers. Everything uses petroleum one way or another.
We are doomed.
I’m just happy I’m too old to go through all the bad times that are coming.
2030 could be the decade where nations all over the world realize that independent energy production that produce an overabundance of stable energy is critical to enable growth and prosperity, and thus will put a lot of money, people and political capital towards that goal. Fossil fuels was useful when it had a consistent cheap price and availability, but those properties has been quickly eroded.
You can definitely replace petroleum for many of the things you listed - or find alternative technologies that don’t require it. You can live without plastic bags or plastic clothes for instance.
It’s just that a lot of companies (and people) get very rich from it and they invest A LOT into making sure that petroleum alternatives are not viable.
Of course there are some things were petroleum cant be easily substituted but I would argue the vast majority of use cases doesnt require it.
Energy is probably the most important and there it’s laughable easy to replace.
> You can definitely replace petroleum for many of the things you listed - or find alternative technologies that don’t require it. You can live without plastic bags or plastic clothes for instance.
Not really, not at this scale, or this price and convenience.
Most things you enjoy today are affordable because we have fossil fuels. The entire supply chain of every single product you can imagine is very dependent on fossil fuels. We're not even capable of making proper roads or tires without petroleum derivates, without these two alone nothing gets to you. Investigate a bit, you'll find petroleum and petroleum derivates a prerequisite of virtually everything.
Renewable energies look like a solved problem today with wind and solar, but it seems like everybody forgets that the entire supply chain to make them is 100% petrol dependant from mining raw materials to the final delivery. In a world without petrol these would be orders of magnitude more expensive, if even possible at all.
Scale tends to be a bit of a chicken and the egg problem.
regardless, i agree, we aren't totally killing fossil fuels anytime soon.
on the other hand, we don't need to. A reduction in demand by 75% would be world changing, and looks a lot more plausible than no fossil fuels ever.
> Not really, not at this scale, or this price and convenience.
Not at this scale and price and convenience.
We can absolutely do so for higher prices. And with solar panels becoming more efficient, cheaper, and more ubiquitous with each passing year, we may find that a lot of those "higher prices" were really just "higher energy input costs", and we will be able to come very close to what we have now. (I don't know for sure—this isn't an area I keep abreast of.)
You might want to read the whole comment, renewables are only cheap now because every single step of their creation involves fossil fuels. Once everyone wants 60kg of lithium in their car and 100kg for they're home we'll quickly run into the exact same raw ressources problems.
If everything gets 10-100x harder and more expensive to make I can guarantee you the world will become a very different place.
Wouldn't the most important thing be the nitrate fertilizers? Do we have anything to replace them?
> nothing can replace petroleum right now.
You don't need to be some kind of super genius to understand this, if you have not been sucked in to the populist left wing propaganda about petroleum. We can't even replace petroleum for energy right now, let alone all its other uses.
It's not just oil we'll have issues with either, lots of minerals could easily see shortages and rapidly increasing costs to extract over this century.
> We are doomed.
More propaganda. We don't need infinite economic growth, infinite population growth, or even continued quality of life growth. Nothing bad even happens when you have degrowth, all other life forms have periods of growth and degrowth. It's all crazy propaganda that people repeat we need to constantly keep boosting up population numbers.
A few generations ago nobody on earth ever saw a motor car for the entire history of humanity. Or electricity. Antibiotics. Synthetic fertilizers. Any kind of plastic.
Things will change, people will adapt, conflict and famine, etc. Much the same as the rest of human history. The people of the future might no lot be able to expect to be clothed, fed, housed, and entertained in exchange for sitting around an air-conditioned office eating a birthday cake before putting in their solid 2.5 hours of work for the day drawing up the next draft of policies around who can use which bathroom before scrolling tiktok for the rest of the work day. But I wouldn't call that "doomed".
We're an energy civilization entirely built around fossil fuels, mostly petrol, on top of that we "optimized" everything to the max, which means any little inconvenience will now break several systems/sub systems.
We're about to realize what it means to have a globalized economy addicted to petrol
COVID was the last time our global CO2 output decreased, hope it sticks this time.
Yes but it’s fine we have way too much of everything anyway
Yes, pretty much. Have you seen that the houthis took the bab al-Mandab strait?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/09/11/world/middlee...
Food production is also at risk
Dont forget beef
If you check what is globally going on then yes, it looks like we are heading that direction.
Well, we already had the toilet paper shortage last time around, but round #2 of this administration just keeps on giving.
And the promise is that we will have a shortage of shortages!
Good thing I have an electric lawnmower.
I saw this mentioned somewhere several weeks ago. I used my driving data and maintenance records and projected mileage forward two years for each vehicle and bought the amount of oil I would need to service each vehicle for two years of driving at current monthly mileage rates. I already had transmission fluid for all of them and serviced differentials (usually something you do above 100000 miles) so I won't need other oil products for a while. Good luck y'all.
Now I wait for the inevitable switch to EVs to create discounts on ICE vehicles as people finally get the message that EV is the future. I will buy the pickup I need at a discount to today's prices as that shift gets going.
Trump wrecks everything he touches.
The ladies at Tran Girlismo called this soon after the blockade started.
Another win for EVs from this war.
with AI booming and Iran war that affect us all
is this really the worse time that we can get fck in both ways from "new world" and "old world" ???????