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A silver lining to the storm clouds of war.
Yep, Trump enacted a de facto global carbon tax.
The carbon tax is supposed to finance things, what Trump has done is more like forcing the crisis. More like an acceleration
Well most of the increase in prices goes into petroleum companies' profits (at least the ones that can export). So it's technically not lost and will be invested somehow.
Like a Carbon tax, the money doesn't disappear. But to whom it gets distributed, that's another story...
Yeah, definitely would’ve preferred a revenue neutral carbon tax and dividend, but that wasn’t happening anytime soon.
First taxing carbon with a blockade, now taxing animal meat with screwworm. I wonder what bad thing he'll accidentally destroy next, maybe the military industrial complex?
Great points. Military industrial complex, he's shown how the US military doctrine we're extremely heavily invested in doesn't work too well in this new world of cheap drones, so maybe. Maybe Raytheon et al will lose their expensive military contracts and we'll build out much cheaper weapons. Maybe the guy is actually just brilliant at making unpalatable things happen.
Everyone wanted disruption and we get disrupted, but not in the way anyone expected.
It’s so wild to me to make a multiyear purchasing decision based upon recent events. My next car will be an EV not suggesting it’s a bad decision however I’m still blown away by statistics like this.
I'm well aware things can change, but having my everyday commute costs generally decoupled from geopolitics seems nice
Yeah buying an EV instead of a gas car is a hedge that doesn't cost much. There is an asymmetry in the upside and downside risk. The downside risk is all on gas with no upside. No downside for the EV.
The thing is a lot of people might be right at the tipping point of buying an EV and then some news like this comes out and it pushes them over the line.
I feel EVs at this moment are right at the level of “I’m gonna buy a new car, but maybe I’ll wait for the one after before I jump into an EV”. Better batteries (solid state), better charging speeds and more fast charger availability seem to have a large group of people waiting.
Renault seems to have made a sensibly priced range with some classic styles too. Familiar cars but with EV, rather than early adopter cars like the Nissan Leaf or weird tech bro cars.
The Renault 5 is selling like crazy.
Makes sense why, reasonable price, good design, made in Europe EV.
It's what a lot of people have been waiting for.
You're not wrong - I see about 10 of these a day driving around. And that's a car model that is only about a year old. It's selling like hot cakes.
Ghosn was right. Japanese did him dirty and Nissan collapsed as a result.
It’s not a bad idea. I bought in 2022 and the range of newer EVs is already a lot more than mine. But I really enjoy my car and don’t have much pressure to take so many roadtrips.
What I can’t see doing is buying a new ICE now. If you just want something to hold you over a few years, buy used or lease.
That makes no sense to me. I've had an EV for five years and right now the infrastructure is fantastic in comparison. There are chargers everywhere, they're fast enough, and the prices are reasonable. The batteries are also quite large. I see absolutely no reason to buy an IC car any more. Many people have solar panels installed, making the commute practically free.
I think at the upper range, and for Teslas, this is true. But for the rest, not quite yet.
Suppose you buy an entry-level Renault 5, the WLTP range is 310km. In mild conditions you typically get 85-90% of that, enough for the majority of people. But in winter you get 65% of that, so 195km, on a new battery. And after 5 years that may be 165km in winter, and that's just not great. With home-charging that still is enough for most requirements, but you are more restricted for longer trips and have to charge diligently.
I live in an apartment so I wouldn't be home-charging daily, there'd be plenty of times I'd want to park my car at the first available spot in my area at 55% charge and use it the next day, which is even more restrictive.
For the entry-level Tesla the WLTP range is 530km or 70% more. There the problem is much less. And for home-chargers, it's also a no-brainer usually, especially with home solar. But for an apartment-dweller who just needs an entry-level car, it's still a toss-up between a new EV like a renault 5 for 30k, or just a Toyota Corolla Hybrid that gets great mileage, low maintenance and can be had new for 30k or a few years old for 20k.
Unfortunately, I refuse to buy a Tesla due to Musk's politics.
Mate, I too live in an apartment and have had Zoe 41kWh (Type2-only) for several years. I've been through all that, including several 900+km trips. It's not as bad as it sounds. I'll reiterate - with CCS you don't really worry about charging. Those 310km is enough for over 80% of anyone's trips. The guy who bought 9yr-old Zoe drove away 278km with 28km left when he got home. Recently I've got a Cupra Born with 77kWh and couldn't care less about the charging infrastructure anymore. It's just a regular car at this point. Charging on the street is even more practical than driving to the nearest petrol station.
There's some people that say having no airconditioning, no dishwasher, no elevator, no computer, no smartphone isn't as bad as it sounds.
And they're completely right, for them. And completely wrong, for others.
I'll never claim that it's not enough for you. And I agree also that 80% of anyone's trips can be done on just about any EV, even an old Zoe. The statistics are very clear on that, 80% of trips are short.
But you won't sell to the majority with that limitation. Just like 80% of the time my house has just 2 people in it (me and my gf), but if there was a local law that on homes in my street I could not have more than 2 people in the house (like visiting friends and family), I wouldn't have bought it. Because I don't buy it for '80% of the time', I buy it for 100% of the time.
The same goes for cars. People buy 5 seater cars even though the average car has 1.5 persons in it, for this very reason. Only 1% to 2% of cars have 2 seats, even though this is more than necessary for the average occupation in a car.
Pretty frustrating that so many people have to face the actual crisis to actually react to it. And that’s the case in so many situations
It moves up people's purchasing plans. If you were expecting to replace your vehicle in the next two years because of performance degradation, and now your fuel costs are substantially higher, then a purchase today might make more sense than your original plan.
Of even if people are just considering and EV as compared to an ICE car they may think "you know what, who knows when fuel prices will come down? maybe I just switch now!"
Recent events? Russia going rogue and the US going haywire both happened a decade ago at least. Those are two major suppliers of fossil fuel for Europe. The current trend was bound to happen, it only required time for the industry to pivot.
We're commenting on the fact that demand has surged in the last few months. Russian and American behavior from a decade ago didn't (directly) cause that.
There was definitely a build up. Trump was held back from being Trump in the first term. Even with that, there was no recourse for any of the actions that he took. There were also the court decisions that happened in between terms. So this term, he naturally feels no need to hold back. It is unlikely this Trump term would happen had his first not happened.
No, but it did cause changes that made it possible for people to change their habits when the current crisis hit them.
Recent consequences, the events began long ago :)
I think this is people that were thinking of getting an EV anyway and they decided to do it earlier
I bought one because I had a feeling that the price of used EVs was about to shoot up
This also coincides with EVs becoming better and cheaper
Climate change has been in the zeitgeist for decades now. Pretty sure many people are cognizant of this and want to move away from fossil fuels. This is just a boost to do so.
That and governments pushing to ban non-EV cars over a certain timeline while subsidizing more expensive EVs.
The most important thing right now in addition to fuel prices is how much cheaper EVs are getting because of innovation in China.
Interesting point, I wonder why governments haven't planted the idea in buyers that ICE cars will be getting more expensive to own (e.g. through taxes) in the coming 5-10 years. Then the thought of buying an ICE car now will also be less attractive because people know they won't be worth much in the 2nd hand market in 5-10 years.
But I suppose I see the answer, it's because of the car manufacturers employing many EU voters (in particular in Germany which is the 400kg gorilla in the EU), no government wants to piss off their voters.
It's not as direct as a future tax, but ICE cars have been gradually made less useful in many EU countries including Germany and France. You can't drive one into the centre of Paris, and older ICE cars are banned from the centre of larger German cities.
Even people who never go to these cities know it reduces the second hand value.
What is there to not understand. Given large enough population there's always someone ready to update.
Even wilder to project other peoples decisions so naively
"make a multiyear purchasing decision based upon recent events" You have this all backwards. The fact is that for many decades petroleum is an unreliable energy source due to geopolitical factors, but people have been pretending that was not the case. What has happened in the last two months is people have finally realized the long-term truth.
Oil usage being subject to supply shocks is nothing new, it’s completely inevitable. Moving to renewables is an obvious upgrade, this recent crisis is just bringing that into the light for folk.
It's more like the recent events trigger people's awareness and learning about multi-year trends that are happening regardless of recent events.
EVs are a good deal in much of the world. They're more quiet, lower maintenance costs, lower fuel costs, therefore lower cost of ownership and operation. And they have less volatile costs as electricity prices swing less than gas prices.
Long-term trends show electricity and gas prices decouple.
It's just that every time gas prices spike, people look into solutions and find out these truths.
EVs have been better for ~90% of the driving most people do for a decade, but a lot of people held back because they fixated on things like epic road trips or needing to haul many sheets of plywood.
What a price shock does is force people to acknowledge how much money they’ve been spending on edge-cases, making many of them reconsider how much it’s really worth to, for example, go on an all-day drive without every stopping for more than a few minutes or whether the SUV/pickup truck aesthetic is worth paying 50% more every day.
as a charging station network founder, I can confirm, the summer has never started off this welll.
Since the article is about Renault, I wanted to mention their EVs use motors with no rare-earth metals.
https://www.renaultgroup.com/en/magazine/energy-and-powertra...
Same with Nissan [0], BMW [1], and Indian EVs [2].
European firms like ZF, Valeo, MAHLE, and Schaffler along with British firms like AEM have been working with Indian manufacturers for a couple years now to integrate supply chains for mass-producing EESMs.
EESMs as well as the larger OEM story played a role in helping land the EU-India and the UK-India FTAs because the supply chains for French+Italian (Renault, Stellantis), Japanese (Toyota, Honda), Korean (Hyundai-Kia), and Indian automotive manufacturers merged.
On the other hand, EESM EVs aren't a thing here in North America nor China yet.
[0] - https://leandesign.com/nissan-ariya-magnet-free-motor-teardo...
[1] - https://www.bmwblog.com/2025/02/20/bmw-gen6-electric-motors-...
[2] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/india-revs-up-alternate-...
I'm not considering replacing my car just yet, but supplementing with an electric scooter or bike might be nice
I recommend e-bikes. If you get a folding one it can go in the boot of the car and save you on parking. I own a petrol car but hardly use it as the bike is handier for me.
I think I agree but currently it's analysis paralysis. Just had a huge repair bill come in for the car and to be blunt if I could supplement its daily wear and tear I'd appreciate it, so the fire under me is starting to get lit.
We went with a PHEV when I renewed our lease last month, specifically because gas prices
Curious why not pure EV?
Range anxiety is probably the only reason one would choose a PHEV these days. They’re slightly cheaper also but that’s unlikely to be a factor.
might depend on the country.
US/california would probably be 50c/kwh (though gas there is close to $7)
all other US states are less (for now, datacenters, ugh)
We take long road trips, with three dogs, often. The anxiety of thirty minute charge stops just isn't super fun (we've tried it).
PHEVs are typically discouraged in many countries nowadays, because drivers fall into one of two categories: A) plug-in to charge on a (virtually) daily basis at home B) plug-in to charge as necessary, some of whom have no home-charging (apartment-dweller)
PHEVs make no sense for category (A) people because there is no range-anxiety if you home-charge every day. Typical drivers do 40km a day on average. Even an entry-level Tesla model 3 has >530km of range, and goes up to 750km for the model 3.
PHEVs also make no sense for category (B) people, because the PHEV has just 50km of range. So if you don't plug in all the time, you're basically driving a gasoline car with an extra engine and a battery, increasing weight (= fuel) and maintenance cost.
Various studies of real-world usage have shown PHEVs are less efficient because the behavior of its drivers. They'd be better off just driving a regular hybrid, like a Corolla.
The only area where PHEVs make sense are people who drive short-distances on a daily basis, plug in the car always at home, yet make frequent (say weekend) long trips of 6+ hours of driving without any breaks, or long trips to remote areas with no charging infrastructure. This is a pretty rare combination. Most PHEVs are traditionally owned by urbanites lured by a green dream and green subsidies, who're better off getting a pure EV or just an efficient boring hybrid.
And demand will probably go up a lot further still. Right now fuel prices are kept artificially low by every country releasing their strategic reserves, but these will run out at some point.
Europe is heading into the worst energy crisis since at least the 1970s, possibly worse. And yet very little is happening to prepare for it. Definitely some fun times ahead.
The US is on pace to run out of its strategic reserve in ~2 weeks.
I don't think that's true, but if it is then Iran would be foolish to make a deal right now.
Iran has no choice but to make a deal, if they don't want their country turned into a parking lot. With complete air superiority, taking their power plants and a few bridges would lead to complete economic collapse as seen in Cuba.
Let's try to not glorify terrorism too much and still pretend the west do not target civilians and civilian infrastructure please. Remember, the pesky Arabs are the one who target civilians, that's why they are terrorists. We only occasionally target civilians, and when it happens, it's because they are evil and support an evil man, so we aren't.
Obligatory "Are we the baddies?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY for those who don't know this meme (the Dawkins definition of meme)
It's good to be angry about hypocrisy. Since both sides target civilians, the only winner will be whoever is more powerful.
There will be no winner, only a side who loose less. I am not really angry at the hypocrisy, i am angry that people act like cheerleaders for war crime and terrorist attacks. The hypocrisy is a given, and tbh, it's okay. I just want people to understand what they are cheering for, and in this case, it is terrorism.
If you support this kind of strike, you support the same kind of strike as 9/11. And it's okay, you do you, i just want you to realize that.
There is no evidence that the USA can or will turn Iran into a parking lot. Which countries, besides the USA, has the USA turned into parking lots so far?
There is plenty of evidence the strait will remain closed and the USA will continue dying until the USA surrenders. Notwithstanding that nice toddler-level reversal, "you can't close the strait, I'm closing the strait!"
The US is dying at the slowest rate of nearly every country outside of Africa.
Irrelevant. The war is between the USA/Israel and Iran, every other country is collateral damage until they decide to join the side of Iran to reduce their collateral damage - which they have been reluctant to, so far, except for China (which is winning as always).
You should read up Chinese satellite images of surrounding Gulf countries. Iran GDP now is growing. Their revenue spike up. The back end of Iran is fully operational with Russia and China shipping in goods on steroid. F35 and B2 no longer flies in Iran.
Just in time for the big 4th of July celebrations. Happy Semiquincentennial!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/america-may-see-actu...
Four weeks ago, California received the last of the shipments coming from the Strait. Everyone said CA only has on hand six weeks of supply. There was a bunch of panic baiting posts at the time. I haven't seen any suggesting that the supply is coming to an end, but maybe I've missed stories of resupplies coming in to the west coast??
California itself produces a substantial amount of oil.
A mile off Interstate-5 in the southern Central Valley, and you can’t tell you’re not in Texas oil country. Santa Barbara regularly has oil leaks from the offshore production in the Channel Islands area, and Beverly Hills High School famously has a productive oil well on campus.
So the state isn’t going to literally run out of oil (though lack of imports could lead to shortages).
Isn't the US self-sufficient in both oil and natural gas? Most impacted is East/South Asia, second most is Europe, then US is the least impacted by far, although the US will experience inflation on imported goods.
There are no export restrictions, US oil consumers compete with the world to purchase US oil.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/12/business/cushing-oil-inventor...
The US produces a lot of light crude from fracking, however the refineries were built to process heavy crude. Therefore the US still needs to import heavy crude to meet demand.
Gas prices nationwide have been dropping for a month, despite no peace treaty being signed. I don't understand it.
Higher order effects are impossible to predict.
How many he has said “we have already won the war” and “we are very close to signing the deal”?
SPR is fueling that decrease in price. But it won't last till midterm. Expect Iranians (and Chinese+Russians) to drag this till Nov.
I think perhaps the huge surge in EV demand has something to do with preparing for the energy crisis
Every country? Or just the US? Fuel is through the roof in most countries, Japan had to dedollarize (call in its USA loans) to buy oil and several Asian countries had to switch to 4-day workweeks to avoid riots and coups.
Where are the climate change fanatics when you need them? Work from home Covid style would decrease oil consumption and oil prices.
You still think climate change is a hoax? Maybe that’s why you didn’t hear all the pushback and criticism for totally unnecessary and unwanted Iran war!!
People who accept the reality of climate change have been calling for that since the return to office push started. Unfortunately, they don’t have a multi-billion dollar marketing budget like the fossil fuel industry or the political parties it’s co-opted so much of the public discourse ignored them.
What should be happening to prepare for it?
Slightly off-topic, but can anyone comment on the quality of the EV charging infrastructure in the EU? Outside of owning an EV and charging it at home/work, are fast chargers reliable and abundant enough for road trips?
I recently looked into renting an EV in Spain and instead opted for gas. It seems like the public charging infrastructure is just not all that reliable there (e.g. broken chargers + delivering less power than advertised) and fragmented when it comes to paying across many apps. Maybe this is specific to Spain after all.
Friends and colleagues here in Denmark have no problems with summer trips to Italy etc, but I haven't tried a long trip like this myself in an EV.
Have an EV in Germany, charging is a non-issue. The stations are everywhere to the point that it’s easier to get a parking spot with an EV than without.
Netherlands here, it's great. Idk about Spain.
My brother-in-law doing trips between England and Hungary with an EV.
And all the American automakers pivoting away from EVs are just going to concede the world market to China.