China Marches Forward
By 
In the end, the entity most helped by Donald Trump returning to the White House is China. As Trump tries to repeal the 20th century and commit the U.S. to dirty energy based on nostalgia, China moves forward as a stable regime offering stable trade policies and products that are good enough. The Chinese are moving in a huge way on the British car market due to cheap electrics. They are in Mexico too. Friends of our have one–it’s pretty high tech and totally nice inside. How great is it over the long term? Dunno. But there’s a reason they are beginning to take over the world’s car market, even if there are too many brands. We this internally in China as well, where electric trucks are pushing diesel trucks off the road.
Electric-powered heavy trucks are rapidly gaining market share in China, driven by subsidies and the quick rollout of chargers, further curbing diesel usage and denting oil demand from the world’s biggest crude importer.
The boom in electric truck sales in China follows that of electric cars and the rise in recent years of LNG-powered heavy trucks. Those factors, combined with slowing economic growth, have stifled its oil consumption growth.
Sales in the world’s biggest market for new energy trucks are estimated to have risen 175% year-on-year to 76,100 in the first half of this year, or about a quarter of new truck sales, according to consulting firm Sublime China Information (SCI). Electric models, still mostly used for short-haul runs in ports, mines or steel mills, accounted for over 90% of that increase.
The rapid pace has surprised analysts who have revised down diesel demand forecasts as a result and brought forward their predictions for a peak in Chinese oil demand.
SCI’s analyst Xu Lei said he cut the firm’s China diesel demand expectations by 1%-2% given the boom in electric truck sales.
“The surge in electric heavy trucks was a surprise and has become a new factor accelerating China’s oil consumption to peak, most likely this year,” said Ye Lin, vice president at Rystad Energy, who had previously expected a 2026 peak.
The transport sector, which burns about two-thirds of all diesel in China, will use 40% less by 2030, cutting overall diesel consumption by about a quarter compared to 2024 levels, according to Rystad.
Diesel consumption this year is forecast to fall by 11.3 million tons, or 6.3%, on par with last year’s drop, according to SCI.
Peak oil consumption. I think that’s banned in Trump’s America. China is a nation of the future. America is a nation of a failed past. This is not a good thing on a political front. But it’s entirely understandable why this is happening.