China, India & oil demand

One common way of forecasting future oil demand is linking GDP and oil consumption. The standard outcome of this kind of analysis is that China & India's growth is going to lead to massive increases in oil demand in future years.

This chart of population density across the world made me wonder if there is another factor. Oil is predominantly a transport fuel. India and Eastern China have extremely high population densities. When people live closer together they need to drive less. This may temper the growth of demand in India and China somewhat.











These gapminder charts (all with log scales !) show that although the link between GDP & oil consumption is strong, there is a definite link between oil consumption and population density also.