As robotaxis become popular, people in the U.S. will likely choose to sell their old ICEs to people who might use them less frequently, keep them in storage in their garage for recreational use, sell them, or simply give them away for scrap.

We already saw in April 2020, as Covid began to spread, that crude oil prices could turn negative. We said in our 2017 report Rethinking Transportation that when robo-taxis become popular, “used internal combustion engine (ICE) car prices plunge to zero or even negative value. The rising cost of maintenance, gasoline and insurance; the cost of storing or taxing worthless vehicles; and the lack of a used car market might mean that prices go to zero or even below. That is to say, owners may need to pay to dispose of their cars.”

We do not think it is likely that most ICE cars will be converted to autonomous electric vehicles (A-EVs). Of course, some unique old cars might be converted to electric vehicles (EVs) for fun, but it will generally be easier to manufacture new electric cars that can drive themselves than to convert old ones. The business for recycling old cars will boom.

Explore the evidence...

• Vehicle fleet size will drop by over 80%, from 247 million vehicles in 2020 to 44 million in 2030, as can be seen in the graph below.
  • To learn the projected statistics of ICE vehicle disruption, and the disruption of the transport industry, read p34-35 of our Rethinking Transportation report.
• The disruption of ICE cars and the transportation industry will happen quickly, and will change the business model of transportation forever. 
  • Mainstream forecasts show vehicle disruption as a multi-decadal progression, rather than as the sharp S-curve exponential shift that will change the business model of the industry altogether.
  • Read p19-20 of our Rethinking Transportation report to learn about what will happen to the existing fleet of ICE vehicles as Transport-as-a-Service disrupts our transportation system.
• The technology convergence that led to the disruption of the horse and cart by ICE vehicles occurred rapidly in the 20th century. It can provide a historical example for how disruptions affect market dynamics. Read p15-17 of our report Rethinking Humanity to learn more about this historical example of disruption within the transportation sector.
• To learn more about implications for vehicle manufacturing companies and strategies available to car manufacturers, read p37-39 of our Rethinking Transportation report.
• Read our blog post to find out how many A-EVs will be needed to meet global demand.
• Huge quantities of defunct ships, oil rigs and refineries, pipelines, cars and trucks will provide a stockpile of recyclable scrap steel, along with other metals. This scrap steel will be more than sufficient to supply the increase in demand for steel for the new industries such as solar photovoltaic and wind power installations in the energy sector and bioreactors in the food sector.
  • Read p35-36 of our Rethinking Climate Change report to learn more about the cascading effects of disruption on iron and steel.

Published on: 12/07/23