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ARTHUR GOLDSTUCK: Shell sets out to prove fossil fuel's no dinosaur
You would think that the writing was on the wall for oil
The massive growth in electric car sales in the past two years represents one of the great new industry booms. According to the International Energy Agency, battery-powered vehicles took 10 years to pass the one million mark in 2015, but just a year on from then to rise to the two million mark by the end of last year. In Norway, a third of new cars sold are electric. In the US, industry sales figures show that, even excluding market leader Tesla, June 2017 sales of plug-in cars were double those of the year before. You would think that the writing was on the wall for oil. Yet, there has been no let-up in research and development of new oil and fuel products for traditional vehicles. Just this month, Shell South Africa announced what it called "the next evolution of petrol and diesel fuels". Called V-Power, it uses a fuel formulation, dubbed Dynaflex, that contains new "dual-detergent" molecules. The benefits, Shell claims, include that it makes engines cleaner with each use, and kee...
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