Gasoline Cars To Remain Dominant In 2040, Energy Agency Says

Cars running on gasoline have been with us for almost 140 years, and diesels for almost 80 years. More than 1 billion vehicles on the planet use those fuels today.

So the view that liquid hydrocarbon fuels are on their way out requires taking a rather long view.

Now we have one estimate of a timeframe for such a transition, courtesy of the U.S. Energy Information Agency. And it can be summed up as: a very long time.

In an "early release overview" of its Annual Energy Outlook report, released Monday, the agency predicted a sharp rise in average fuel efficiency, resulting from stringent new corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) rules.

And it predicted that total vehicle miles traveled would rise at 0.9 percent per year, from 2,662 billion miles in 2012 to 3,434 billion miles by 2040.