EV demand up 50% in France and Germany since Iran war(www.reuters.com)
116 pointsby a_paddy11 hours ago9 comments
  • kieranmaine8 hours ago
    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...

  • Tharre8 hours ago
    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.

    • vitally36437 hours ago
      I think perhaps the huge surge in EV demand has something to do with preparing for the energy crisis
    • inigyou5 hours ago
      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.
      • naveen994 hours ago
        Where are the climate change fanatics when you need them? Work from home Covid style would decrease oil consumption and oil prices.
        • mandeepj3 hours ago
          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!!
    • solumunus16 minutes ago
      What should be happening to prepare for it?
    • onlypassingthru8 hours ago
      The US is on pace to run out of its strategic reserve in ~2 weeks.
      • dylan6047 hours ago
        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??
        • labcomputer41 minutes ago
          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).

      • jerlam5 hours ago
        Gas prices nationwide have been dropping for a month, despite no peace treaty being signed. I don't understand it.
        • Haven880an hour ago
          SPR is fueling that decrease in price. But it won't last till midterm. Expect Iranians (and Chinese+Russians) to drag this till Nov.
        • mandeepj3 hours ago
          > despite no peace treaty being signed. I don't understand it.

          How many he has said “we have already won the war” and “we are very close to signing the deal”?

        • mensetmanusman4 hours ago
          Higher order effects are impossible to predict.
      • energy1237 hours ago
        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.
      • thunky7 hours ago
        I don't think that's true, but if it is then Iran would be foolish to make a deal right now.
        • drnick17 hours ago
          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.
          • Haven880an hour ago
            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.
          • inigyou4 hours ago
            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!"

            • mensetmanusman4 hours ago
              The US is dying at the slowest rate of nearly every country outside of Africa.
          • orwin5 hours ago
            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.
        • onlypassingthru5 hours ago
          Just in time for the big 4th of July celebrations. Happy Semiquincentennial!

          https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/america-may-see-actu...

    • sourcegrift7 hours ago
      Frankly you sound like a Russian shill who will then go on to say that Ukraine fight is not Europe's just like Iran war is not an American concern (I agree that trump shouldn't have gone in there) but the two situations are not equivalent.
      • Tharre7 hours ago
        I don't know what kind of straw man you built up in your head, but I can assure you I don't believe in any of that.
  • dualvariable2 hours ago
    And all the American automakers pivoting away from EVs are just going to concede the world market to China.
  • roxolotl9 hours ago
    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.
    • pyrale8 hours ago
      > It’s so wild to me to make a multiyear purchasing decision based upon recent events.

      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.

      • praxulus7 hours ago
        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.
        • dylan6047 hours ago
          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.
      • axus7 hours ago
        Recent consequences, the events began long ago :)
    • 2muchtime9 hours ago
      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.

      • seanmcdirmid7 hours ago
        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.

      • cicko7 hours ago
        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.
      • jimnotgym8 hours ago
        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.
        • Haven880an hour ago
          Ghosn was right. Japanese did him dirty and Nissan collapsed as a result.
        • vrganj8 hours ago
          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.

          • deeringc7 hours ago
            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.
    • Jtsummers8 hours ago
      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.
      • nielsbot7 hours ago
        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!"
    • belviewreview6 hours ago
      "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.
    • solumunus10 minutes ago
      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.
    • firegodjr9 hours ago
      I'm well aware things can change, but having my everyday commute costs generally decoupled from geopolitics seems nice
      • Gibbon18 hours ago
        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.
    • ReactiveJelly8 hours ago
      I bought one because I had a feeling that the price of used EVs was about to shoot up
    • davis7 hours ago
      > based upon recent events

      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.

      • dmix7 hours ago
        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.

        • netsharc5 hours ago
          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.

    • cromka7 hours ago
      > It’s so wild to me to make a multiyear purchasing decision based upon recent events.

      Even wilder to project other peoples decisions so naively

    • askvictor8 hours ago
      This also coincides with EVs becoming better and cheaper
    • dgellow9 hours ago
      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
    • gonzalohm8 hours ago
      I think this is people that were thinking of getting an EV anyway and they decided to do it earlier
    • sampton7 hours ago
      What is there to not understand. Given large enough population there's always someone ready to update.
  • Neywiny8 hours ago
    I'm not considering replacing my car just yet, but supplementing with an electric scooter or bike might be nice
  • bormaj6 hours ago
    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.

  • neals8 hours ago
    as a charging station network founder, I can confirm, the summer has never started off this welll.
  • pstuart9 hours ago
    A silver lining to the storm clouds of war.
    • ericd9 hours ago
      Yep, Trump enacted a de facto global carbon tax.
      • inigyou4 hours ago
        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?
        • ericd2 hours ago
          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.
      • dgellow8 hours ago
        The carbon tax is supposed to finance things, what Trump has done is more like forcing the crisis. More like an acceleration
        • raphaelj7 hours ago
          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...

          • ericd5 hours ago
            Yeah, definitely would’ve preferred a revenue neutral carbon tax and dividend, but that wasn’t happening anytime soon.
  • etchalon8 hours ago
    We went with a PHEV when I renewed our lease last month, specifically because gas prices
    • nielsbot7 hours ago
      Curious why not pure EV?
      • loloquwowndueo7 hours ago
        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.
      • m4637 hours ago
        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)

      • etchalon4 hours ago
        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).