Things are very different now compared to the late 1990s. China and India are rapidly growing and the middle classes are going to want cars.

http://news.xinhuane...ntent_7414628.htm

BEIJING, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- Auto production and sales in China both surged more than 20 percent to a record 8.8 million units in 2007, despite slackening sales in global markets, an industry group said Sunday.

China's automakers rolled out 8.88 million motor vehicles last year, up 22.02 percent from a year earlier, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

Total vehicle sales jumped 21.84 percent year-on-year to 8.79 million units in the world's second largest car market after the United States, twice the figure in 2003.

[...]

Currently, vehicle ownership in China was 44 for every 1,000 people, he said. This was compared with the world average of 120. The United States has 750 vehicles for every 1,000 people.

Dong said China's car market has huge potential as the economy continues to grow rapidly and the government tries to encourage people to spend money.

China had 57 million motor vehicles by the end of last year. Among them were only 15.2 million privately-owned cars, according to latest government figures.

If China ends up being only half as automobile-ized as the US, and its population doesn't increase beyond 1.3 B, that's still about 500 M cars and they're going to need a lot of oil even if they get 50 mpg.

And, yes, Hubbert's Peak still applies - like it or not.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3720

There may be other ways to get hydrocarbon fuels, but the traditional way of finding deposits and pumping it out of the ground is slowly playing itself out. There aren't huge, easy to exploit, fields out there any more. I think the price of oil will be volatile, but over the next 10 years I don't see the trend in prices doing much but increasing.

Cheers,
Scott.