is there a genuine fear among the oil company executives about the potential for electric vehicles?

The sale of gasoline itself may go down some but there are things that will always require gasoline, lawnmowers, tractors, trains still need diesel as well as tractor trailer rigs, weedwackers, chainsaws, snow blowers, etc. There is no good electric replacements for these items when they're needed in the field for long term use. So, the price of gasoline will just skyrocket and lubricants are still needed even for electric motors in the form of grease for bearings, oil in small engines on aforementioned items and the price will also skyrocket on lubricants. Yes, they can make synthetic lubricants but they are already very expensive. Just face it, we are going to be paying a lot more in the near future. Even then the demand on electricity will go up so then, so will its cost. They are not going to take a loss, you can count on it, the CEO's need their cruise vacations you know.

Sure it is. Anything that undermines repeat business is bad for them. 

Probably. They are not smart enough to realize they can still make money making other things -- lubricants, eg.

Oil is used for many other things like fertilizer, plastics, lubricants, etc.

Oil is not going away any time soon.

not fear.. they are actively lobbying against, or trying to figure out how to sell the oil for other purposes, like plastics, chemicals, carbon fibre materials etc.

its going to be longer than a decade

i would hope not

Yes.  But they should have known by now that electric vehicles are the future.

If you were an oil CEO, you'd be rich and figuring out a way to stay rich. I wouldn't waste too much time worrying about those guys. 

But, electric power is generated mostly by oil and natural gas.  And, there's home heating oil, petroleum needed for making plastics.   So, they've got a few good years left 

Something will have to be burned in order to provide power for the car to be recharged.