If one removed the country names and just looked at where investment (focus, planning, and money) was, we would see two greatly different pictures.
One country is disincentivizing or even blocking renewable energy production, rolling back climate protection measures, trying to revitalize the coal industry, slashing investment in scientific research of all kinds, demonizing higher education, and spending vast and rapidly increasing amounts of public funds to create direct, physical conflicts.
Another country is increasing their renewable energy generation capabilities dramatically each year, encouraging EV adoption, investing very heavily in scientific research, and also investing in military (although without initiating direct physical conflicts).
One of these two countries is riding on momentum, but the drag from waste and mismanagement of resources is increasingly slowing it. The other country is building momentum while reducing drag.
The difference in these approaches will be obvious in a decade, and in two decades one of the two countries will be just another chapter in a book about the rise and fall of empires.
While I agree with your overall point, I'm reminded of "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" here. The US is a huge economy with a massive military infrastructure. I don't think it's fading to fallen empire status that quickly.
Hopefully. With that said, when a country makes too many poor decisions, independently or relative to other countries, it'll eventually bite them in the butt.
It’s going to be a multi-polar world. The US will continue to be among the top powers for decades to come. We’re simply exiting an unusual period where China isn’t leading/among the leading pack of countries.
The rate of US relative decline will be set by our policy decisions and cohesion. As we are apparently electing malicious narcissists with dementia to our highest office, a more precipitous decline seems reasonable
Europe is wisely waking up and starting to loosen its military dependence on the US. Hopefully they are/will do the same when it comes to medical research since the US has been taken over by anti-vaxxers.
I’m saying this as a non European. I’m an American who is making plans to split my time between the US and Costa Rica (here now) and maybe Panama and would love to see them become close to Europe politically.
US has fossil energy and its actually on the front lines in innovation including green energy, so it will probably be fine. IMHO the main risk would be whatever hapen to the Japanese mobile phone industry happening to US. That is, US will probably end up developing lots of very cool US specific tech that people will talk about how impressive it is but no one will be interested in actually buying it because everyone else will have moved on.
I'd say it's a closer race and the end is not a foregone conclusion yet. That one country currently exhibiting some very troubling tendencies also has more robust self-healing mechanisms in the form of democracy. It has gone off course in the past too but then found its way back. That said, those self-healing mechanisms are under attack as well so there is at least some suspense in the long term outcome
I'd like to share your optimism and trust in that country-that-shall-not-be-named's self-healing mechanisms, but its system is already centuries old and based on a sort of "gentleman's agreement" that each of the powers in the state will respect the others. To make things worse, since WW2, the executive has amassed more and more power which a sufficiently unscrupulous president can use to start an authoritarian takeover. Currently, the only hope I see is that enough people are fond enough of their democracy (even if only because that's what they grew up with) to stand up for it when push comes to shove...
> If one removed the country names and just looked at where investment (focus, planning, and money) was, we would see two greatly different pictures.
> ...
> The difference in these approaches will be obvious in a decade, and in two decades one of the two countries will be just another chapter in a book about the rise and fall of empires.
The interesting question is: why. I'd say the US ultimately will be judged to be another victim of the "shock doctrine" (in its case, the China Shock). In other words (at least in a democracy): letting the economists and libertarians run wild with the economy will create a backlash that will ultimately weaken it.
The supposedly smart people in charge needed to pay less attention to their pet theories, and way more attention to the common people. They didn't, and this is the result.
Genius strategy by the USA to disincentivize EVs, disincentivize solar and wind, increase dependency on oil & gas, and...start a war that makes oil and gas more expensive for everyone. Markets are now forecasting oil prices will stay above $100 a barrel for multiple years. Best of luck to the economy.
There's a sweet spot in oil pricing that maximizes profits for producers, and $110 a barrel is well over that. If there's a recession then nobody is buying your product.
Well the USA is a net exporter of all oil products since 2019, this will probably make some people very rich and has the potential to be good for parts of the us energy sector.
The west coast is the only part that relies on middle eastern oil. And a spike in prices will just get them in line and connected to the rest of the shale powered system.
I don’t like any of this, but I think the doom and gloom lies elsewhere.
>> The west coast is the only part that relies on middle eastern oil. And a spike in prices will just get them in line and connected to the rest of the shale powered system.<<
Californian here. There is no discussion or any desire to build an oil pipeline from TX/LA across NM and AZ to deliver oil to refineries here. Ha, if you think the Keystone XL pipeline was controversial... it'll never happen.
Calif produces about 20% from its own but tired wells. Some oil is imported from the Middle East but larger volumes come by ship from South America and Alaska.
> has the potential to be good for parts of the us energy sector.
No way this is good for anyone other than oil producers. The only potential positive it'll have on the US energy and shipping sectors is this is going to put even more pressure on adopting renewables as fossil fuel cost spikes.
That's good only for inflation, nothing else. Renewables are included, after inflation and tariffs they won't become more attractive compared to carbohydrates.
> The west coast is the only part that relies on middle eastern oil. And a spike in prices will just get them in line and connected to the rest of the shale powered system.
The west coast is adopting EVs at a faster pace than the rest of the country. You could just as well see accelerated adoption of EVs in personal and freight transportation, Chinese manufacturers opening up US EV production, and so on.
The answer isn't necessarily drawing shale from Alberta that we can't really process anyways (without mixing it with light crude from Texas anyways).
The west coast also has some of the highest priced electricity in the nation, with apparently projections on it getting even worse somehow.
It’s amazing how much grift and subsidy leveraging the US renewables market has engaged in compared to pragmatic deployments elsewhere like China. Utterly insane and it shows how difficult it’s going to be to fix since it’s an endemic problem with American society at its core.
> Markets are now forecasting oil prices will stay above $100 a barrel for multiple years
It'll never go below $100 a barrel.
It went bellow $100 a barrel for the last few years because as US shale processing came online, opec decided to also keep production high which cut oil prices from $100/barrel to ~$50/barrel where it's roughly stayed for the last decade.
There's not another "new way to extract oil for cheap" technique on the horizon. Israel and Iran are both destroying oil extraction and processing facilities in the gulf region, it'll take years and a huge amount of money just to rebuild those. By the time that's finished, assuming it finishes, inflation will have firmly caused the price of oil to stay above $100.
This is basically a permanent increase. We are sort of at global warming catastrophes now. It's not a question of if it will be bad, it's a question of how long and how intense. The longer this war/military operation/regime change/whatever we are doing goes forward, the worse it will be. And, unfortunately, I don't think there's any specific goal the trump admin is trying to achieve. This is such an obvious F-up and Trump will only pull out if he can somehow make a claim that it isn't.
> Israel and Iran are both destroying oil extraction and processing facilities in the gulf region
This isn't like Katrina where oil infrastructure was being temporarily evacuated, shut down, and taking some water and wind damage.
The oil infrastructure is being blown to smithereens. And not just pumps that are sucking oil out of a hole in the ground. Refineries. Big expensive factories that process oil. Stuff we don't even bother to build in progressive parts of the world because the combination of environmental regulations and concerns about climate change mean it's possible they'll never pay off their massive construction costs.
> Stuff we don't even bother to build in progressive parts of the world because the combination of environmental regulations and concerns about climate change mean it's possible they'll never pay off their massive construction costs.
Ignoring pollution and externalities for the sake of argument this is what is very interesting to me. It’s not clear that the capital markets if left to their own devices would even invest in rebuilding these to begin with due to concerns about being paid back.
The oil industry has went from growth based investments to capturing returns on current deployed infrastructure over the past decade or so. Only very limited and calculated capital is being deployed in this sector these days.
It will certainly be interesting to watch. I’m certain those countries will rebuild via government funds, but I’m wondering how profitable that will end up actually being given how expensive that’s become to build, the insane construct lead times these days, and the overall trend in oil demand. Natural gas is even more interesting since it’s firmly directly linked to renewable energy deployment. Gas usage goes up as we deploy more solar worldwide, at least in the short term.
Secure all the oil of one country, while bombing another so prices rise dramatically. Make everyone pay higher prices while they dramatically speed up their move away from oil (buying all the equipment from your biggest enemy) and hate you in the process.
It truly is a great strategy if you want to make a quick buck now before you become irrelevant in five years.
I finally put my money where my mouth is and bought a PHEV. In the past month I've done all my errands around town exclusively on battery power (30-40 miles per charge) from a home L1 charger.
I know EV purists will complain about the complexity of maintaining the gas engine, but this hits the perfect sweet spot for me - it doesn't weigh a million tons, it cost under 40k new, and the one weekend a month when I need to I can drive 300 miles each way on a single tank of gas.
I think plug-in hybrids are the perfect combo. You get amazing flexibility and if you mostly drive locally, then 80-90% you are probably purely driving electric
When we bought are last car, I would've bought one of those if there had been a Toyota or Honda minivan. We ended up going for a regular hybrid instead. Hopefully this category gets adopted by more car makers
Well, if you want to be pedantic, sure, nothing is perfect. You can always find fault with anything. Like you say, there are always tradeoffs
It all depends on what you want the car for and how you use it. It will also depend on the very specific car and manufacturer. In my case, even though I love the concept of PHEV, I'd still wouldn't buy a Chrysler, so, to your point, I prefer to get a different brand that is not a PHEV, than get that specific make
I don't have the physical space for 2 cars. In terms of comfort and reliability I can't imagine 2 20k cars would have the same quality of life that my 1 new car has (less than 40k). I traded up from a ~20k gas SUV that was extremely expensive to maintain.
A car's ownership costs are dominated by fuel and depreciation (which is a proxy for repairs and maintenance - brake pads, oil changes etc). You're probably going to come out ahead of the fixed costs of licensing, insurance, and registration on gasoline savings alone.
The parking spot may or may not be an issue. If you can charge an EV at home, you likely have a garage or driveway. If not, then sure this doesn't apply.
The bonus: with 2 vehicles you can use exactly as much car as needed for each trip.
The EV can be a smallish hatchback or sedan with low-to-medium range. You aren't going too far and won't carry much stuff. It's enough for 90% of your miles driven.
The ICE can be a minivan or SUV, since you'll likely need more space for road trips. You aren't pointlessly driving that hulking PHEV SUV on milk runs.
> A car's ownership costs are dominated by fuel and depreciation (which is a proxy for repairs and maintenance - brake pads, oil changes etc).
Only in the USA. In the rest of the world, taxes and parking fees are also significant. Americans are really spoiled when it comes to low car ownership costs.
Depreciation, sure. If you’re buying new of course.
Fuel is very much use dependent. I drive very little so having one large nicer (3 years old off a lease return) made the most sense to me when I had to watch the bottom line. Both financially and quality of life.
I filled up the tank on that thing once every 2-3mo at most. Tires cost more due to simply aging out and the rubber compounds not being as spry as they once were. Other than that it was an oil change once a year. It was a Honda so I think the only repair work I did was a $20 relay that failed I was able to self diagnose, over the 13 years I owned it.
Yeah that’s the extreme end - but there is a lot of middle ground before you get into it being cheaper to have a second vehicle. I do now, but that’s due to owning a ridiculous dream weekend car. Maintaining two cars, insuring them, dealing with less space in the garage for other stuff, etc. really is a giant expensive hassle even if both were cheap(ish) used vehicles.
The math switches once you get to “beater” level cars - but I am far removed from the time of my life where I want to deal with actual car repairs due to things breaking unexpectedly. The used car market also isn’t like it was when I was 22 and broke either. Deals are much harder to come by. I value my time and mental energy far more these days as well.
Different strokes for different folks!
If I went back to a single car I’d likely be looking at a PHEV Lexus or similar class vehicle for a bit of luxury plus reliability. I still rarely drive though so it’s a silly expense either way.
> A car's ownership costs are dominated by fuel and depreciation. You're probably going to come out ahead of those fixed costs on gasoline savings alone.
Depends how much you drive. If you don't drive much to start, and then having two vehicles cuts that in half, your effectively-fixed costs go up - e.g. you start having to replace your tires because the rubber is getting too old long before the tread wears out, insurance doesn't scale down linearly for low-mileage drivers, etc.
We have two EVs, but I have no problem with PHEVs. They are another case where theory (too much complexity) does not match practice (actually, reliability is fine).
PHEV would be my choice but I WFH and my wife doesn't work so we just don't drive enough for a non-IC car to make sense. Gas would need to be like $20/gallon for it to pay off.
I own both a PHEV and EV. I really don't like driving the PHEV because the performance goes to crap at 40 miles when the gas motor kicks in. Once you are in ICE mode you are driving a loud poorly performing car. In rural areas I think PHEVs are fine.
i bought a small ev for commuting/around town (100 mile range in good conditions), and a large gas vehicle for everything else. if you have room, this appears to be the true sweet spot.
PHEV is the absolute way to go. Next car is 100% going to be this. I rented two EV's and had serious stress about charging in locations I wasn't familiar with. All the different plug types and speeds was also not helpful. PHEV is a great gateway into full EV.
Rental cars as EVs are pretty much the worst possible case. We are at the transition where we don't have chargers everywhere, but we will soon because chargers are way cheaper than a gas station. Also rentals tend to be driven for longer trips, and for uncertain distances! And on top of it all rental companies tend to not give people any choice, education, or help with the EV.
I wouldn't bother with a PHEV for a vehicle I buy as I'm always going to buy EVs from now on, but for rentals a PHEV makes a lot of sense.
I'm in Western Europe and while there are chargers everywhere, you need hundred apps to register to charge, some slots are broken (empty yet show busy), some refuse to charge my PHEV... we're not there yet.
Interesting. I occasionally rent EVs in Western Europe, and they just come with a single RFID card which seems to be accepted by all charging providers.
You can use the chargemap card which is virtually accepted everywhere but they add their own fees which can be ridiculous, sometimes it can even double the price of electricity.
That's good to hear! We had some visitors, and we went on a trip to the mountains, and the nearest Level 2+ charger was some 70 miles away. It was a bit stressful for them, as they had never used an EV before, and the Electrify America chargers at the time tended to be either broken or in use. It was a major pain and stress point.
This will all get easier as the chargers become more prevalent.
Now that I'm comfy with "oh, install yet-another charging phone app" (a handful offer a website too) and the prevalence and backwards-compatibility of modern DC chargers and learning how to check which standards are supported by where, I'd be comfy with a full-EV, but I could understand being intimidated by that without the practice of driving a PHEV.
But to be blunt: It's a hump you'd get over, as long as you had access to an overnight charger of any kind (even just 110V mains) at home.
The port war is basically over here in North America - CHADEMO and CCS2 aren't a thing here and any charge station that offers those is just an old station that was hedging their bets. The only real standards you'll see are
- J1772 (the old AC power system),
- CCS1 (DC upgrade to J1772, backwards-compatible with J1772 chargers, looks like a J1772 with extra bits on the bottom)
- NACS (the Tesla port).
And unless you've got an old J1772 AC-powered car (like my Prius Prime), you can get adapters. So basically if you get a CCS1 car you need 1 adapter, and if you get a NACS car you need 2 (both CCS1 and J1772) if you want to be able to charge literally anywhere. The only wrinkle then is how fast you need to charge, and AFAIK NACS standard has more options for crazy-fast charging.
I totally understand the learning curve aspect, but I think if you owned one that stress would fade away pretty quickly.
I will first point out that for DC fast charging, there are only two connectors to think about. It is not really more complicated than that. It's a learning curve, but not much different than learning the difference between gasoline, diesel, and which octane to put in your car.
You would have your charging station at your house. That removes a whole lot of the burden.
Then, there’s just the sheer size of the expansion and reliability in charging networks over the past year or two. Where I live, there is no direction where I can travel on an interstate where there aren't chargers on premier networks at normal rest stops/truck stops (rather than in odd parking lots behind Walmarts or what have you).
You've also got newer non-Tesla EVs that have NACS compatibility or NACS built-in, doubling the size of the charging network for those vehicles.
You wouldn't have the problem of lacking the right adapter if you owned the car.
With long trips, we are talking about multiple hours of driving before needing to charge, so I think we need to rethink the amount of burden it really is to plan your route ahead of time. It’s gotta be less of a burden than getting multiple oil changes per year or visiting a gas station every week or two to cover your daily commuting.
I think the only people for whom EVs don’t work are people who take long road trips with a frequency that far exceeds the national average (e.g like a monthly 600+ mile trip).
> I don’t really understand why it’s such a burden to plan the route ahead of time. It’s gotta be less of a burden than getting multiple oil changes per year or visiting a gas station every week or two for your typical commuting.
Well it depends on your specific configuration/workflow.
I just get oil changes when I have my vehicle in for seasonal tires changes anyway - I drop it off in the morning on my way to my office and pick it up after work. The experience would be identical with an EV.
I still feel that PHEVs combine the worst parts of both worlds.
The battery of a PHEV is relatively small and will be strained much more (as compared to an EV), especially if you drive a lot in EV modus. PHEV batteries tend to wear out faster for this reason. This drives up cost of ownership.
Then you still have the maintenance / cost of the ICE drivetrain. It does not make sense to me.
I feel that a lot of people buy vehicles because of the long-distance trips they make a few times a year. Long-distance trips are not a big deal anymore with the current status of the fast-charging stations.
Yes you may still do 600 miles on a single tank of gas with a ICE or PHEV, but you have to stop and rest, use the bathroom, drink something. Everytime you stop is a charging opportunity.
Anno 2026 there is so much choice for 'pure' EVs for the budget you stated, especially second-hand.
And then you may be able to charge at home, with solar, it's a no-brainer to me.
This is possible with an PHEV too, but well, we discussed that here.
> The battery of a PHEV is relatively small and will be strained much more (as compared to an EV), especially if you drive a lot in EV modus. PHEV batteries tend to wear out faster for this reason. This drives up cost of ownership.
With appropriate battery management, this doesn't really drive up the cost, it just moves the depreciation curve around.
Think of it from the other side - with an EV, you're paying up front for a bunch of battery value in a consumable good that you'll never depreciate.
Imho PHEVs were the right tool for the job before 2020 or so. The cost of batteries was so high and the lack of standardization on charging tech was too tedious. I bought a Prius Prime in 2019 and I absolutely regretted not getting a PHEV sooner. Governments should've been pushing those harder.
But the day of the PHEV has come and gone. The massive price gap between PHEV and BEV is now negligible, and the charging experience is so much better now.
The problem with PHEVs is the data shows that, at scale, consumers typically use them in ICE mode vs EV mode. Its great it works for you, and hopefully BEVs kill the need for PHEVs in the next few years as the technology continues to rapidly improve around charge rate (<10 minute 10%-80% battery state of charge).
> Plug-in hybrids use three times more fuel than manufacturers claim, analysis finds
> three times more fuel than manufacturers claim
But in the article:
> Porsche hybrids consumed more fuel – around seven litres per 100km – than other PHEVs when the electric motor kicks in, and significantly more than non-PHEVs in combustion engine mode. The lowest fuel consumption levels were found in the cheaper end of the PHEV market, in Kia, Toyota, Ford and Renault vehicles, which often used under one litre per 100km, or as much as 85% less fuel than the Porsche.
So it seems like they are putting all cars in the same bucket based on the worst performing one: Porsche. Pretty misleading
Also, even if the claim applied to all cars, for a Chrysler Pacifica PHEV for example, instead of 82 MPGe (32 mi electric-only range), you'd get ~39.2 mpg (using 6 L/100 km, the figure from the article), which is still better than a Toyota Sienna hybrid at 36 mpg, and way better than a Honda Odyssey at 22 mpg (gas only)
That seems like cherry picking the offenders to invalidate the entire class of vehicles.
…Porsche hybrids consumed more fuel – around seven litres per 100km – than other PHEVs when the electric motor kicks in, and significantly more than non-PHEVs in combustion engine mode. The lowest fuel consumption levels were found in the cheaper end of the PHEV market, in Kia, Toyota, Ford and Renault vehicles, which often used under one litre per 100km, or as much as 85% less fuel than the Porsche.
If I am buying a PHEV, I am not getting a Porsche or BMW.
On the other hand, if I'm in the market for a Porsche or BMW commuter, the cost of fuel is basically negligible and a PHEV for performance or convenience or comfort would influence my decision far more than a relatively insignificant amount of fuel savings.
My Prius Prime has been fantastic for me. It has about a 25 mile charge, which is just enough to get me to work and back.
That range is a significant caveat. If your round trip commute (or one way commute, if you can charge at work) is outside the electric range, then you'll be relying on gas every day. In my situation it's worked out extremely well. I charge at home and only need to fill the gas tank about three or four times a year.
Anecdotally, some brands are better than others. I test drove a Kia hybrid where the gas engine was pathetically underpowered and it ran constantly. Even when the battery was full it was still burning gas.
I think Toyota might be the only company with a good PHEV drive-train. A Prius or Rav4 PHEV can do highway speeds on battery. And they have a heat pump so the gas engine doesn't kick in unless it gets very cold.
Another factor is home charging availability. The Canadian government gives a rebate for PHEV vehicles, but they took away the subsidy to install L2 chargers. It's very attractive right now to buy a PHEV and never charge it just to get the purchase rebate.
> I think Toyota might be the only company with a good PHEV drive-train.
I've lost track a bit, but Ford has a pretty comparable drivetrain (e.g. in the Escape PHEV), and Toyota is sharing their drivetrain with Mazda (e.g. the CX-50 has same drivetrain as RAV4) and Subaru has Toyota-derived drivetrains in the new Crosstrek/Forester hybrids. (Mazda/Subaru don't currently have PHEVs available for their Toyota-sourced hybrids, but that could presumably easily change.)
Availability of various models is wonky now due to US tariffs.
People taking action against climate change and CO2 emissions. Policymakers, etc. You wouldn't want to subsidize PHEVs in any fashion if they weren't contributing to the targeted outcome of reduced CO2 emissions or fossil fuel consumption.
PHEVs when bought by informed consumers making a financial decision still pencil out just fine here.
It’s the silly regulatory games played by manufacturers and regulators that cause stuff like a hybrid cayenne or 6000lb BMW M5 Touring to exist when neither the buyers or manufacturers want them to exist to begin with.
These things are not remotely in the same actual category even though on paper they might be. They exist for entirely different reasons, one is market based and one is regulatory workarounds and gamesmanship.
I want a PHEV Cayenne. If budget wasn't a concern, that'd actually be my first choice for replacing my ICE SUV. The convenience and flexibility of a PHEV far outweighs any cost savings from fuel economy improvements for me. A Porsche was never about financial sensibility anyway.
At this point I don't see a solution to the arms-race of autobesity besides regulation. Cars that represent a larger threat to other road users need to have that externality internalized onto the driver.
Because otherwise we just get things like the Hummer EV which is literally over 9000 lbs.
I thought the same thing. Incredibly short term thinking at the corporate and government level to flip flop. Meanwhile Norway is now 97% EV sales and covered in chargers north to south. Not to mention China's fierce EV market domestically.
The problem with many of these EVs is that they were way too expensive. The main reason companies were producing them is due to regulatory requirements and how emissions standards are calculated, not necessarily because wanted to sell these EVs.
What we really need are incentives for companies to build more affordable EVs. California could play a role here, but given the
strong opinions we have about Elon Musk, nothing will be done.
Raise taxes on gas? Put extra taxes on sell ICE vehicles? Increase registration fees for ICE vehicles?
(In short - ICE sales will paying for money lost via EV sales)
I’m not saying it will be easy. I’m saying that if we really want EVs to succeed we can do it.
> All the EV tariffs are staying place past the end of the Trump administration because protectionism is now bipartisan.
Anything Trump supported will continue to be seen as hot garbage after he is removed from office. There is no appetite for protectionism when it has hurt rather than benefitted the American economy.
That heavily depends on the Dem primaries. I think after the unpopularity of Biden and the 2024 loss by Harris there might be more appetite to rock the boat instead of getting another establishment caretaker.
However, the more radical wing of Democrats still have some anti-globalism in them (eg Bernie). But still, imho: Unusual outcomes are on the table for Democratic party leadership at this point.
Confused about this comment. Are you talking about government subsidies and tax incentives? Haven't companies and consumers already been given these incentives? Now that they're drawing down, it's obvious there's a limited market. What needs to happen is real economic demands need to make the market not created ones. Then prices will come down and efficiencies will increase .
No the regulatory requirements and emission standards have nothing to do with affordability. The only reason is just economies of scale. In fact regulatory requirements help because companies like Tesla historically sold their emission credits to other carmakers to make money.
~4 years ago my wife and I planned on buying one EV and one ICE car purely as a hedge on both. We bought the EV first. After ~1mo of driving it we changed our plans and went for 2 EVs. Even driving long distance (we've made a ~3hr drive around every 10 days for the last 4 years), the convenience factor of EVs has outweighed gas. That doubled once we got solar - there's just something magical about having the operating cost of your vehicle be near zero. Even maintenance is significantly less for the EV. I will never buy a gas car again - it feels like switching from a platter hard drive to a SSD, once you make the switch it's very hard to go back.
Totally agree. We only dipped our toe into a small little cheap ev for shorter journeys in January. Looked at getting a charger fitted, then saw great appeal in a Powerwall+Solar…
I’m lucky with roof size and direction - we could get 9kw of panels on. The sun’s been shining nicely the last few days in the UK and it’s honestly beyond magical to see it all working so beautifully, even getting 100w at 6:40 this morning! This week we’ve barely used the grid at all, powering the whole house, car & heating our hot water through the day, all from the roof at no ongoing cost! It was a big investment, but it really does feel like one of the best - it’s giving us a real degree of independence and instant and massive bill reductions.
So I have the exact same feeling! Getting into an ICE car now feels like taking a massive step backwards in so many ways.
BYD are about to launch an EV that charges from 10 to 70% in 5 minutes. As much as I recoil at a brand called "Build Your Dreams", that is quite compelling.
See those big T-shaped things in the picture? Those are the charging stations that BYD (or someone) is going to need to build to see those charging speeds. I'm not saying it can't be done, but as one with an 800V Hyundai that has theoretical charging speed of 350kW, don't expect to just plug in at Electrify America and be done in 5 minutes. (Because the highest I've seen on the Hyundai was 243kW, and I've seen that once, and over 200kW only twice.)
But BYD is pushing forward, and though there's some infrastructure to build it'll get there eventually.
On the other hand, 5-minute charging is definitely a luxury thing: most charging is going to be at home, a decent bunch will be destination charging, people doing long trips generally don't mind having the car charge for 30 minutes while they eat dinner in a roadside restaurant, and only a handful of people are insane enough to drive well over 10 hours at a time with only a single 5-minute break.
In practice I bet 5-minute charging will mainly be used to show off for your golf buddies. Co-locate it with the megawatt-scale chargers we'll be building for trucks next to major highways anyways, and it can be offered as a very profitable luxury product without too much extra effort.
There are times when I wished our Ioniq 5 charged more slowly, like when I want to grab a bite. On a good day, back to 80% in 15 minutes, with a 10 minute grace period before the per-minute charges kick in, and there's barely time to sit and eat the meal.
But one thing 5 minute charging would improve is throughput. We're in the middle of a house remodel, and no room in the garage at the moment for the car to get near the charger. So we've been charging at public chargers a lot, and in the three or four times I've hit a public charger recently, I've had to wait on another car to unplug about half the time. Granted, this is the Seattle area where you can't swing a golf club without hitting an EV, but I've had the same problem on road trips, too.
I was thinking more of EU, since BYD won't be selling cars in the US anytime soon, but you make an excellent point that maybe BYD wasn't thinking outside of China for at least the short term.
How much many more wars over gas or oil do we need to finally just take the energy that (for the most part) is available locally and renewable?!
The petrol era is coming to an end. Our current administration might desperately want to remain a petrol state (for reasons that escape me), but it will only delay the inevitable. The EU is not much better either. The writing has been on the wall, and even since the Russian invasion into Ukraine not much has happened.
What is going on? Are we all insane, or is it just intense lobbying of yesterday's petrol industry?
EVs were on track to being mainstream 20 years ago. See the other story about the 90s GM EV1 and associated documentary. All the technology was there in 1999, but every EV in development simultaneously shut down once they started becoming usable.
the share of renewables of the EU at ~55% of net energy generation is almost twice as high as China's or America's, only Latin America fairs better. Germany essentially front ran this industry 20 years ago. Although as usual it turns out better to be second than first a bit of credit here please.
If your time horizon is long enough, the best possible investment thesis is to assume that climate change is real and the energy transition is inevitable.
I’ve worked in clean energy software and hardware since 2014. I’m currently looking for a new position, and recently some research firms came out of the woodwork offering to pay me a high consulting rate just to better understand the market. I wasn’t even looking for this, they just came to me. All they said was “interest in this area is increasing.”
P.S., if you’re looking for someone with deep domain knowledge and senior-level engineering skills for your clean energy project, I’m available. https://matthewgerring.com
I'm in Shenzhen currently. Do you know how quiet the city is, even during rush hour? It's amazing. All because almost every car is electric. Even the damn scooters. It'd actually be enjoyable to be outdoor in downtown if they fixed the air pollution… (some of which of course powers these cars… for now.)
The main noise from cars is tire noise. But if traffic moves slowly enough (which it does in a Chinese city during rush hour), you won't hear much.
Even since 2002 I've had to dodge quiet e-bikes in Beijing. They just sneak up on you without any noise, and they have a lot more momentum than a human powered bike.
It’s been a month. Not long enough for a trend. Every time gas prices spike these celebratory pieces come out and then when gas prices drop at the end the consumer markets revealed preferences are made bare again. Let’s find out if this can sustain for more than a year after gas prices drop.
Last time gas spiked above $4/gallon nationally people were trading in their huge gas guzzlers at an extreme loss (because no one else wanted them either). I read an article about someone who was contemplating losing $30k on their trade-in instead of continuing to pay high gas prices.
(I don't know what my point is, just that people have short memories, and are generally speaking not rational about purchases, or money in general.)
It seems really unlikely to me that 2 weeks worth of high oil prices is anything more than a rounding error in BYD's years (decade?) long bet on electric cars.
Even if they tripled their sales for the last two weeks, it wouldn't be relavent to if their bet will ultimately pay off.
For what it's worth, I feel like it's perfectly logical to make any current new car purchase choices taking into account the US history of Middle East forever wars and that the Strait of Hormuz will probably be a deathtrap for years at this point.
It also helps that BYD cars are very aggressively priced and are genuienly pretty good. Here in the UK they are getting pretty popular and it's easy to see why - legacy companies like VW and Audi are (for the lack of better word) taking the piss with their pricing and with penny pinching on literally everything.
And it's not just BYD. A couple of brands I'd literally never heard of till a year ago, Jaecoo and Omoda now seem to be getting pretty popular, saw quite a few when I was over in Glasgow.
What I find most amazing about all this is that this is literally the market that Tesla was aiming for. Affordable EVs for regular people was their whole thing, they were years ahead of BYD, already had an established brand, they just had to keep doing what they were doing, adding cheaper models to their lineup, and they would be much stronger competitors.
I'm sorry to be that guy, but can we reintroduce a good dose of skepticism in our mental diets?
BYD was already selling a ton of cars when the oil prices were "low", of course there's some very creative accounting business moves you would expect from a Chinese company like BYD ( companies from other places have their own peculiarities too ).
Gas prices have been "sky high" for a week and people who are under financial stress just decided to ditch their cars and buy a brand new BYD? Are we children now? listening bedtime stories?
The concept of electric vehicle is technically superior to support the context and lifestyle a large majority of people have. It will "win" over time. There is no need to this bullshit simplistic feel-good articles.
Btw, the the market movements of people trying to get rid of their gas-guzzling SUVs when prices are high and trade them for a smaller and more economical car ( what they should have been doing in the first place.. ) already happened in the past many times, there is no news here. But these movements don't happen in a time span of a week or a couple weeks.
Sorry for the rant, but between AI's "Absolutely, you're entirely right!" and these bullshit articles.. I don't know.
To be clear: EV's will "win" and BYD has been selling a ton of cars because they are cheap and not terrible right out of the gate, also people don't have much disposable income.
Just be aware of journalists relating 2 unrelated things happening at the same time using "among" and "as" and discount the article accordingly. If you didn't pay money for the article, they will utilize click and engagement bait. Of course a week of increased oil prices hasn't changed any measurable purchasing patterns as the title implies.
Very true. It's not like EV owners were feeling regret when gas hit the (mythical ) $2/gallon. Honestly, while it's fun to know I've "saved" $5k or so in gas costs during the 4 years I've owned my EV, if saving money was my only goal, I would have paid cash for a slightly used efficient four cylinder gas car.
It's not like EV owners were feeling regret when gas hit the (mythical ) $2/gallon.
Gas could be free, and I'd still have no regrets. Because an EV is simply the better vehicle. And I think after over a decade of mass-produced EVs that maybe it's time to get away from "saves on gas" or "good for the environment", and maybe start marketing as "full every time you pull out of the garage", or something. Kind of like Mazda's old commercials for their Wankel engine cars: "piston engine goes 'boing', but the Mazda goes 'hmmmmm'".
I'd be more interested in EVs if they didn't come with significant privacy and complexity trade-offs.
I don't want a door handle that can't open in an emergency. I don't want my vehicle constantly phoning home to the mothership (sadly I have to deal with that today, I really need to go disable that functionality). I certainly don't want a touchscreen through which all controls are routed.
I have a 20-year-old Jeep with significant mechanical problems; I should really convert it to a BEV.
I'd be more interested in EVs if they didn't come with significant privacy and complexity trade-offs.
You're going to be really disappointed when you go to look at new ICE vehicles. This "EVs are a privacy nightmare!" trope needs to die, all cars do that now.
I don't want a door handle that can't open in an emergency.
Only one car manufacturer to my knowledge has that problem, just don't buy one of those. Again, nothing to do with electric cars.
I certainly don't want a touchscreen through which all controls are routed.
So far, other than the poorly-designed door handles of one manufacturer, nothing you've listed is unique to EVs. All you've done is describe "most new cars".
> Gas prices have been "sky high" for a week and people who are under financial stress just decided to ditch their cars and buy a brand new BYD? Are we children now? listening bedtime stories?
Have you actually seen the news and the situation? Gas prices will continue to rise and will stay high for at least 3-5 years, given the damaged infrastructure and how long it will take to rebuild. And that's if nothing else happens, so the situation could get a lot worse
This means 2 things: 1) it might be a better alternative to drive electric (depends on the numbers), and 2) if enough people start preferring EVs, prices for EVs might spike in the next 1-2 years. So buying now could be a good move depending on how things turn out
Russia has been recovering from Ukrainian drone strikes again oil industries within months. And Ukraine inflicted much serious damage than Iran on Gulf states.
Drones with 100-150kg just not capable of inflicting hard to recover damage. What they are good is striking repeatedly. But judging by numbers Iran is not capable any longer of sustained stacks with hundreds of drones per day.
Very interesting take. Not sure about the comparisons though: 1) Russia is a huge powerhouse that can do a lot on its own, I don't think Gulf states have the same capability to recover (at least that's what energy analysts are saying), 2) The US claimed they had completely maimed Iran in the first few days of the war, saying they had fully destroyed their navy and their missile launching capabilities. However, that clearly doesn't seem to be the case, and yesterday Iran even downed an F35, which until then was thought of as an almost impossible feat
I guess there's a lot up in the air right now, so I personally wouldn't bet on things getting better that quickly
I wasn't talking about BYD in particular, nor referencing any numbers or quotes from the blog. I was responding to the above comment mocking/doubting people's decisions about EV purchases and showing how that contrasts with the current macro situation
Feel free to expand on the wholesale power market prices you are referring to though, not sure what your take is
Wholesale power market prices are responding to shocks in the natural gas market from two wars that disrupted those supply chains. Solar and batteries have been and will continue to he the cheapest source of power, and globally, deployment is accelerating.
Not so much in the US, where our braindead political culture is intent on ignoring the obvious economic advantage of renewables, but definitely everywhere else in the world.
> Solar and batteries have been and will continue to he the cheapest source of power, and globally, deployment is accelerating.
I think storage is great and solar has a place, but this is not true unless you discard reliability and other features, which should be in the price. Solar plus storage for baseload power matching requires huge overbuilds. Even in the last few years, before the AI hype, installed utility scale renewables costs went up in the US. It's not just the hardware or national politics.
And if you can't get renewables interconnected in a couple years, then the install rate won't lower the carbon of the existing grid mix charging your car.
> Gas prices have been "sky high" for a week and people who are under financial stress just decided to ditch their cars and buy a brand new BYD? Are we children now? listening bedtime stories?
The situation is something that makes people pause for a second.
Like everyone knows that EVs are the future, but when gas is fine, status quo fine, that future can be a fuzzy thing in the distance and it's really easy to shut off your brain, live in the present, and not really do any thinking and just go through the motions.
A sudden oil shock puts the issue of EVs on the front burner and gives people reason to think about things for a moment.
This article is anecdotal with quotes from a BYD salesman about their product, and it doesn't mention that BYD's sales are down in Jan-Feb. 2026 (-36% y/y).
At any one time I would assume there are thousands of people in the world who are replacing their existing vehicle right at this very moment for normal reasons.
> I'm sorry to be that guy, but can we reintroduce a good dose of skepticism in our mental diets?
Of headlines? Always. Of the content of the article? Not without you providing counterevidence.
Speaking of the content:
* BYD has seen an uptick in demand for EVs
* "At one [BYD] dealership in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, demand is so high that it booked a month’s worth of orders in just the past two weeks"
* another dealership nearby had to hire more salespeople
* small uptick from Edmunds for people researching EVs in relevant period[1]
i cant wait until we can have these cars in the US. looks like I'm going to be pretty geriatric by that time but it's absolutely stupid how many ICE cars are still all over the place at this point
Ah yes, I'm sure in the Philippines, where the average yearly salary is ~ $4k USD, everyone is rushing out to buy brand new EVs tomorrow, which they will plug into their tin-roofed shack to charge.
In reality, most working class Filipinos travel via public transit or ICE scooter.
I know they write this stuff to generate clicks but at least pretend to try.
> While Asia, particularly Southeast Asian countries like Thailand and the Philippines, has higher EV adoption rates than those of the US and Europe, at around 40%, they are still hit hard by rising oil prices.
That figure is highly misleading. Yes, 48% of new vehicle sales in Thailand are now EVs, but their share of total vehicles on the road is much smaller: I can't find recent figures, but it'll be far less than 10%. (Share of new sales was under 20% until late last year.)
The Philippines is even further behind, with share of new sales under 10%.
Of course total fleet composition will eventually converge on new sales, but given that the lifespans of cars are measured in decades, it takes longer than you'd think.
New sales are the leading indicator to total fleet composition turnover. As oil prices stay high into the future, and monthly sales of EVs continues to increase, it speeds fleet turnover from combustion to EVs.
And Norway is a "best case" as a wealthy country where people turn over their cars pretty quickly. The Philippines is at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Average age of cars in Norway is higher than in many other countries due to high taxes on cars.
And then in China number of cars per capita is much less then in West. As more and more people there can afford a car and that car will be EV, transitioning to mostly EV should happen faster than in Norway.
It's not rational to expect owners to discard equipment long before the end of its service life, especially when the operational costs are not an order of magnitude lower.
Without time travel or CCCP circa 1955 property controls, a 100% EV ownership benchmark is unreasonable.
Certainly, it's going to take time, but peak global combustion vehicle sales are long behind us (2017). Global fleet will turn over to EVs eventually, we're just arguing time horizon based on how quickly EV deployment ramps and combustion sales are destroyed. Combustion vehicle sales will only keep declining. Developing countries will soak up cheap EVs made by China, they will skip over combustion vehicles with higher total cost of ownership. Combustion vehicles will age out eventually as EV sales continue to increase.
> Globally, over 1-in-5 (22%) of new cars sold were electric in 2024. This share was 92% in Norway, and in China, it was almost 50%.
In 2025, it was 1-in-4 (25%). What will expensive oil do? It will pull these trajectories more vertical.
If one removed the country names and just looked at where investment (focus, planning, and money) was, we would see two greatly different pictures.
One country is disincentivizing or even blocking renewable energy production, rolling back climate protection measures, trying to revitalize the coal industry, slashing investment in scientific research of all kinds, demonizing higher education, and spending vast and rapidly increasing amounts of public funds to create direct, physical conflicts.
Another country is increasing their renewable energy generation capabilities dramatically each year, encouraging EV adoption, investing very heavily in scientific research, and also investing in military (although without initiating direct physical conflicts).
One of these two countries is riding on momentum, but the drag from waste and mismanagement of resources is increasingly slowing it. The other country is building momentum while reducing drag.
The difference in these approaches will be obvious in a decade, and in two decades one of the two countries will be just another chapter in a book about the rise and fall of empires.
> in two decades
While I agree with your overall point, I'm reminded of "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" here. The US is a huge economy with a massive military infrastructure. I don't think it's fading to fallen empire status that quickly.
When the only question is how precipitous the empire's fall will be, it's not looking good, regardless.
That is always the only question.
>The US is a huge economy with a massive military infrastructure.
Yeah, because famously neither Rome nor Spain nor England had massive military infrastructures for their times.
Hopefully. With that said, when a country makes too many poor decisions, independently or relative to other countries, it'll eventually bite them in the butt.
It is fading though, we are only arguing about the magnitude of its velocity and acceleration at this point.
Is it though? Dollar is appreciating in times of turmoil? And what’s the alternative - the all talk Europeans?
I prefer talk to bombs. In that way Europe has more in common with China- wars ar just too messy and expensive.
Presumably China given OPs comments.
It’s going to be a multi-polar world. The US will continue to be among the top powers for decades to come. We’re simply exiting an unusual period where China isn’t leading/among the leading pack of countries.
The rate of US relative decline will be set by our policy decisions and cohesion. As we are apparently electing malicious narcissists with dementia to our highest office, a more precipitous decline seems reasonable
Alternative to what?
Europe is wisely waking up and starting to loosen its military dependence on the US. Hopefully they are/will do the same when it comes to medical research since the US has been taken over by anti-vaxxers.
I’m saying this as a non European. I’m an American who is making plans to split my time between the US and Costa Rica (here now) and maybe Panama and would love to see them become close to Europe politically.
Most people probably said the same thing about the Soviet Union in the 1980s
'How did you go bankrupt?'
'Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.'
US has fossil energy and its actually on the front lines in innovation including green energy, so it will probably be fine. IMHO the main risk would be whatever hapen to the Japanese mobile phone industry happening to US. That is, US will probably end up developing lots of very cool US specific tech that people will talk about how impressive it is but no one will be interested in actually buying it because everyone else will have moved on.
I'd say it's a closer race and the end is not a foregone conclusion yet. That one country currently exhibiting some very troubling tendencies also has more robust self-healing mechanisms in the form of democracy. It has gone off course in the past too but then found its way back. That said, those self-healing mechanisms are under attack as well so there is at least some suspense in the long term outcome
I'd like to share your optimism and trust in that country-that-shall-not-be-named's self-healing mechanisms, but its system is already centuries old and based on a sort of "gentleman's agreement" that each of the powers in the state will respect the others. To make things worse, since WW2, the executive has amassed more and more power which a sufficiently unscrupulous president can use to start an authoritarian takeover. Currently, the only hope I see is that enough people are fond enough of their democracy (even if only because that's what they grew up with) to stand up for it when push comes to shove...
And even more galling is the why. One country is turning its back on renewables because it's "woke". Just the dumbest people in charge.
> If one removed the country names and just looked at where investment (focus, planning, and money) was, we would see two greatly different pictures.
> ...
> The difference in these approaches will be obvious in a decade, and in two decades one of the two countries will be just another chapter in a book about the rise and fall of empires.
The interesting question is: why. I'd say the US ultimately will be judged to be another victim of the "shock doctrine" (in its case, the China Shock). In other words (at least in a democracy): letting the economists and libertarians run wild with the economy will create a backlash that will ultimately weaken it.
The supposedly smart people in charge needed to pay less attention to their pet theories, and way more attention to the common people. They didn't, and this is the result.
Genius strategy by the USA to disincentivize EVs, disincentivize solar and wind, increase dependency on oil & gas, and...start a war that makes oil and gas more expensive for everyone. Markets are now forecasting oil prices will stay above $100 a barrel for multiple years. Best of luck to the economy.
"Strategy", you say.
It is a strategy, the oil producers in the US are making bank right now. They're getting exactly what they paid for by buying this presidency.
There's a sweet spot in oil pricing that maximizes profits for producers, and $110 a barrel is well over that. If there's a recession then nobody is buying your product.
Well the USA is a net exporter of all oil products since 2019, this will probably make some people very rich and has the potential to be good for parts of the us energy sector.
The west coast is the only part that relies on middle eastern oil. And a spike in prices will just get them in line and connected to the rest of the shale powered system.
I don’t like any of this, but I think the doom and gloom lies elsewhere.
>> The west coast is the only part that relies on middle eastern oil. And a spike in prices will just get them in line and connected to the rest of the shale powered system.<<
Californian here. There is no discussion or any desire to build an oil pipeline from TX/LA across NM and AZ to deliver oil to refineries here. Ha, if you think the Keystone XL pipeline was controversial... it'll never happen.
Calif produces about 20% from its own but tired wells. Some oil is imported from the Middle East but larger volumes come by ship from South America and Alaska.
We are a net exporter but all Americans still exist in the same market where oil is $100+ and very few benefit from that.
> this will probably make some people very rich
yes
> has the potential to be good for parts of the us energy sector.
No way this is good for anyone other than oil producers. The only potential positive it'll have on the US energy and shipping sectors is this is going to put even more pressure on adopting renewables as fossil fuel cost spikes.
Well then that's good for the US renewable energy sector, no?
No, because the US has fallen so far behind in just 10 years.
It’s not the knowledge and tech, but manufacturing-of and at-scale-use of renewables that matters here.
We can’t just-in-time install infrastructure a across the entire country in a matter of weeks or months.
That's good only for inflation, nothing else. Renewables are included, after inflation and tariffs they won't become more attractive compared to carbohydrates.
Or the Chinese renewable energy sector.
> The west coast is the only part that relies on middle eastern oil. And a spike in prices will just get them in line and connected to the rest of the shale powered system.
The west coast is adopting EVs at a faster pace than the rest of the country. You could just as well see accelerated adoption of EVs in personal and freight transportation, Chinese manufacturers opening up US EV production, and so on.
The answer isn't necessarily drawing shale from Alberta that we can't really process anyways (without mixing it with light crude from Texas anyways).
The west coast also has some of the highest priced electricity in the nation, with apparently projections on it getting even worse somehow.
It’s amazing how much grift and subsidy leveraging the US renewables market has engaged in compared to pragmatic deployments elsewhere like China. Utterly insane and it shows how difficult it’s going to be to fix since it’s an endemic problem with American society at its core.
We also have some the cheapest, because solar covers my 90% of my usage for the whole year.
You know who else is a net exporter of oil and gas? Russia. Starting a war with Iran is literally the biggest favor Trump could have done for Putin.
You mean Trump did what Putin wanted
> Markets are now forecasting oil prices will stay above $100 a barrel for multiple years
It'll never go below $100 a barrel.
It went bellow $100 a barrel for the last few years because as US shale processing came online, opec decided to also keep production high which cut oil prices from $100/barrel to ~$50/barrel where it's roughly stayed for the last decade.
There's not another "new way to extract oil for cheap" technique on the horizon. Israel and Iran are both destroying oil extraction and processing facilities in the gulf region, it'll take years and a huge amount of money just to rebuild those. By the time that's finished, assuming it finishes, inflation will have firmly caused the price of oil to stay above $100.
This is basically a permanent increase. We are sort of at global warming catastrophes now. It's not a question of if it will be bad, it's a question of how long and how intense. The longer this war/military operation/regime change/whatever we are doing goes forward, the worse it will be. And, unfortunately, I don't think there's any specific goal the trump admin is trying to achieve. This is such an obvious F-up and Trump will only pull out if he can somehow make a claim that it isn't.
I think that's the important distinction.
> Israel and Iran are both destroying oil extraction and processing facilities in the gulf region
This isn't like Katrina where oil infrastructure was being temporarily evacuated, shut down, and taking some water and wind damage.
The oil infrastructure is being blown to smithereens. And not just pumps that are sucking oil out of a hole in the ground. Refineries. Big expensive factories that process oil. Stuff we don't even bother to build in progressive parts of the world because the combination of environmental regulations and concerns about climate change mean it's possible they'll never pay off their massive construction costs.
> Stuff we don't even bother to build in progressive parts of the world because the combination of environmental regulations and concerns about climate change mean it's possible they'll never pay off their massive construction costs.
Ignoring pollution and externalities for the sake of argument this is what is very interesting to me. It’s not clear that the capital markets if left to their own devices would even invest in rebuilding these to begin with due to concerns about being paid back.
The oil industry has went from growth based investments to capturing returns on current deployed infrastructure over the past decade or so. Only very limited and calculated capital is being deployed in this sector these days.
It will certainly be interesting to watch. I’m certain those countries will rebuild via government funds, but I’m wondering how profitable that will end up actually being given how expensive that’s become to build, the insane construct lead times these days, and the overall trend in oil demand. Natural gas is even more interesting since it’s firmly directly linked to renewable energy deployment. Gas usage goes up as we deploy more solar worldwide, at least in the short term.
Where do you see these long term forecasts?
Trump is emulating the Carter presidency, except for being the exact opposite in character and temperament.
It IS a great strategy if you're an oligarchy or you've quasi-annexed an oil rich central American country. Just sucks for us peasants.
Secure all the oil of one country, while bombing another so prices rise dramatically. Make everyone pay higher prices while they dramatically speed up their move away from oil (buying all the equipment from your biggest enemy) and hate you in the process.
It truly is a great strategy if you want to make a quick buck now before you become irrelevant in five years.
I finally put my money where my mouth is and bought a PHEV. In the past month I've done all my errands around town exclusively on battery power (30-40 miles per charge) from a home L1 charger.
I know EV purists will complain about the complexity of maintaining the gas engine, but this hits the perfect sweet spot for me - it doesn't weigh a million tons, it cost under 40k new, and the one weekend a month when I need to I can drive 300 miles each way on a single tank of gas.
I think plug-in hybrids are the perfect combo. You get amazing flexibility and if you mostly drive locally, then 80-90% you are probably purely driving electric
When we bought are last car, I would've bought one of those if there had been a Toyota or Honda minivan. We ended up going for a regular hybrid instead. Hopefully this category gets adopted by more car makers
Extra weight, extra drivetrain complexity, and many owners don't actually charge their hybrids so they're getting worse mileage.
Tradeoffs everywhere, so "perfect" is very much not the word I'd apply.
Well, if you want to be pedantic, sure, nothing is perfect. You can always find fault with anything. Like you say, there are always tradeoffs
It all depends on what you want the car for and how you use it. It will also depend on the very specific car and manufacturer. In my case, even though I love the concept of PHEV, I'd still wouldn't buy a Chrysler, so, to your point, I prefer to get a different brand that is not a PHEV, than get that specific make
Happy PHEV owner here. I have a few quibbles with my particular model, but imo this is currently the way to go. It's the best of both worlds.
Why not have 2 $20k used cars instead? One EV and one ICE.
I don't have the physical space for 2 cars. In terms of comfort and reliability I can't imagine 2 20k cars would have the same quality of life that my 1 new car has (less than 40k). I traded up from a ~20k gas SUV that was extremely expensive to maintain.
You have to insure each, pay license and taxes... most also need a parking spot.
A car's ownership costs are dominated by fuel and depreciation (which is a proxy for repairs and maintenance - brake pads, oil changes etc). You're probably going to come out ahead of the fixed costs of licensing, insurance, and registration on gasoline savings alone.
The parking spot may or may not be an issue. If you can charge an EV at home, you likely have a garage or driveway. If not, then sure this doesn't apply.
The bonus: with 2 vehicles you can use exactly as much car as needed for each trip.
The EV can be a smallish hatchback or sedan with low-to-medium range. You aren't going too far and won't carry much stuff. It's enough for 90% of your miles driven.
The ICE can be a minivan or SUV, since you'll likely need more space for road trips. You aren't pointlessly driving that hulking PHEV SUV on milk runs.
> A car's ownership costs are dominated by fuel and depreciation (which is a proxy for repairs and maintenance - brake pads, oil changes etc).
Only in the USA. In the rest of the world, taxes and parking fees are also significant. Americans are really spoiled when it comes to low car ownership costs.
Depreciation, sure. If you’re buying new of course.
Fuel is very much use dependent. I drive very little so having one large nicer (3 years old off a lease return) made the most sense to me when I had to watch the bottom line. Both financially and quality of life.
I filled up the tank on that thing once every 2-3mo at most. Tires cost more due to simply aging out and the rubber compounds not being as spry as they once were. Other than that it was an oil change once a year. It was a Honda so I think the only repair work I did was a $20 relay that failed I was able to self diagnose, over the 13 years I owned it.
Yeah that’s the extreme end - but there is a lot of middle ground before you get into it being cheaper to have a second vehicle. I do now, but that’s due to owning a ridiculous dream weekend car. Maintaining two cars, insuring them, dealing with less space in the garage for other stuff, etc. really is a giant expensive hassle even if both were cheap(ish) used vehicles.
The math switches once you get to “beater” level cars - but I am far removed from the time of my life where I want to deal with actual car repairs due to things breaking unexpectedly. The used car market also isn’t like it was when I was 22 and broke either. Deals are much harder to come by. I value my time and mental energy far more these days as well.
Different strokes for different folks!
If I went back to a single car I’d likely be looking at a PHEV Lexus or similar class vehicle for a bit of luxury plus reliability. I still rarely drive though so it’s a silly expense either way.
> A car's ownership costs are dominated by fuel and depreciation. You're probably going to come out ahead of those fixed costs on gasoline savings alone.
Depends how much you drive. If you don't drive much to start, and then having two vehicles cuts that in half, your effectively-fixed costs go up - e.g. you start having to replace your tires because the rubber is getting too old long before the tread wears out, insurance doesn't scale down linearly for low-mileage drivers, etc.
Please don't downvote a perfectly valid question. This isn't reddit. If you think op is wrong, leave a reply or move on.
We have two EVs, but I have no problem with PHEVs. They are another case where theory (too much complexity) does not match practice (actually, reliability is fine).
PHEV would be my choice but I WFH and my wife doesn't work so we just don't drive enough for a non-IC car to make sense. Gas would need to be like $20/gallon for it to pay off.
I own both a PHEV and EV. I really don't like driving the PHEV because the performance goes to crap at 40 miles when the gas motor kicks in. Once you are in ICE mode you are driving a loud poorly performing car. In rural areas I think PHEVs are fine.
i bought a small ev for commuting/around town (100 mile range in good conditions), and a large gas vehicle for everything else. if you have room, this appears to be the true sweet spot.
Only the (a?) sweet spot if you'd otherwise already be a two-car household.
(And the larger gas vehicle can still be a non-plug-in hybrid.)
PHEV is the absolute way to go. Next car is 100% going to be this. I rented two EV's and had serious stress about charging in locations I wasn't familiar with. All the different plug types and speeds was also not helpful. PHEV is a great gateway into full EV.
Rental cars as EVs are pretty much the worst possible case. We are at the transition where we don't have chargers everywhere, but we will soon because chargers are way cheaper than a gas station. Also rentals tend to be driven for longer trips, and for uncertain distances! And on top of it all rental companies tend to not give people any choice, education, or help with the EV.
I wouldn't bother with a PHEV for a vehicle I buy as I'm always going to buy EVs from now on, but for rentals a PHEV makes a lot of sense.
I'm in Western Europe and while there are chargers everywhere, you need hundred apps to register to charge, some slots are broken (empty yet show busy), some refuse to charge my PHEV... we're not there yet.
Interesting. I occasionally rent EVs in Western Europe, and they just come with a single RFID card which seems to be accepted by all charging providers.
You can use the chargemap card which is virtually accepted everywhere but they add their own fees which can be ridiculous, sometimes it can even double the price of electricity.
I love renting EVs now, when they’re available.
They’re always the cheapest option and they’re often nicer than the cheapest gas ICE options. I’d rather be in a Genesis G80 Electrified than a Camry.
I just got a $100 charger for my relatives garage, which almost immediately paid for itself.
(Though I’ll admit, I’m lucky that they installed a 220v outlet decades ago for appliances in their garage).
That's good to hear! We had some visitors, and we went on a trip to the mountains, and the nearest Level 2+ charger was some 70 miles away. It was a bit stressful for them, as they had never used an EV before, and the Electrify America chargers at the time tended to be either broken or in use. It was a major pain and stress point.
This will all get easier as the chargers become more prevalent.
PHEV are too expensive due to a large battery and ICE onboard. Mild hybrid is the way to go
If anyone from Ford reads HN: What's keeping me from a Ford Maverick truck is waiting for the PHEV version.
I drive a PHEV with an old AC J1772 port on it.
Now that I'm comfy with "oh, install yet-another charging phone app" (a handful offer a website too) and the prevalence and backwards-compatibility of modern DC chargers and learning how to check which standards are supported by where, I'd be comfy with a full-EV, but I could understand being intimidated by that without the practice of driving a PHEV.
But to be blunt: It's a hump you'd get over, as long as you had access to an overnight charger of any kind (even just 110V mains) at home.
The port war is basically over here in North America - CHADEMO and CCS2 aren't a thing here and any charge station that offers those is just an old station that was hedging their bets. The only real standards you'll see are
- J1772 (the old AC power system),
- CCS1 (DC upgrade to J1772, backwards-compatible with J1772 chargers, looks like a J1772 with extra bits on the bottom)
- NACS (the Tesla port).
And unless you've got an old J1772 AC-powered car (like my Prius Prime), you can get adapters. So basically if you get a CCS1 car you need 1 adapter, and if you get a NACS car you need 2 (both CCS1 and J1772) if you want to be able to charge literally anywhere. The only wrinkle then is how fast you need to charge, and AFAIK NACS standard has more options for crazy-fast charging.
I totally understand the learning curve aspect, but I think if you owned one that stress would fade away pretty quickly.
I will first point out that for DC fast charging, there are only two connectors to think about. It is not really more complicated than that. It's a learning curve, but not much different than learning the difference between gasoline, diesel, and which octane to put in your car.
You would have your charging station at your house. That removes a whole lot of the burden.
Then, there’s just the sheer size of the expansion and reliability in charging networks over the past year or two. Where I live, there is no direction where I can travel on an interstate where there aren't chargers on premier networks at normal rest stops/truck stops (rather than in odd parking lots behind Walmarts or what have you).
You've also got newer non-Tesla EVs that have NACS compatibility or NACS built-in, doubling the size of the charging network for those vehicles.
You wouldn't have the problem of lacking the right adapter if you owned the car.
With long trips, we are talking about multiple hours of driving before needing to charge, so I think we need to rethink the amount of burden it really is to plan your route ahead of time. It’s gotta be less of a burden than getting multiple oil changes per year or visiting a gas station every week or two to cover your daily commuting.
I think the only people for whom EVs don’t work are people who take long road trips with a frequency that far exceeds the national average (e.g like a monthly 600+ mile trip).
> I don’t really understand why it’s such a burden to plan the route ahead of time. It’s gotta be less of a burden than getting multiple oil changes per year or visiting a gas station every week or two for your typical commuting.
Well it depends on your specific configuration/workflow.
I just get oil changes when I have my vehicle in for seasonal tires changes anyway - I drop it off in the morning on my way to my office and pick it up after work. The experience would be identical with an EV.
How often do you stop at the gas station to fill up for regular commuting?
With an EV, it's 0, unless you are doing a long road trip.
I still feel that PHEVs combine the worst parts of both worlds.
The battery of a PHEV is relatively small and will be strained much more (as compared to an EV), especially if you drive a lot in EV modus. PHEV batteries tend to wear out faster for this reason. This drives up cost of ownership.
Then you still have the maintenance / cost of the ICE drivetrain. It does not make sense to me.
I feel that a lot of people buy vehicles because of the long-distance trips they make a few times a year. Long-distance trips are not a big deal anymore with the current status of the fast-charging stations.
Yes you may still do 600 miles on a single tank of gas with a ICE or PHEV, but you have to stop and rest, use the bathroom, drink something. Everytime you stop is a charging opportunity.
Anno 2026 there is so much choice for 'pure' EVs for the budget you stated, especially second-hand.
And then you may be able to charge at home, with solar, it's a no-brainer to me. This is possible with an PHEV too, but well, we discussed that here.
> The battery of a PHEV is relatively small and will be strained much more (as compared to an EV), especially if you drive a lot in EV modus. PHEV batteries tend to wear out faster for this reason. This drives up cost of ownership.
With appropriate battery management, this doesn't really drive up the cost, it just moves the depreciation curve around.
Think of it from the other side - with an EV, you're paying up front for a bunch of battery value in a consumable good that you'll never depreciate.
Toyota hybrids are very reliable and probably the reason taxi drivers around Europe prefer those. And with the proper PHEV the wear is even less.
I see a ton of Tesla taxis in NL. I’m not buying the hybrid story.
You start with wrong assumption. Compare PHEV with 70kWh battery + ICE vs the same model as BEV with 100kWh battery.
Imho PHEVs were the right tool for the job before 2020 or so. The cost of batteries was so high and the lack of standardization on charging tech was too tedious. I bought a Prius Prime in 2019 and I absolutely regretted not getting a PHEV sooner. Governments should've been pushing those harder.
But the day of the PHEV has come and gone. The massive price gap between PHEV and BEV is now negligible, and the charging experience is so much better now.
The problem with PHEVs is the data shows that, at scale, consumers typically use them in ICE mode vs EV mode. Its great it works for you, and hopefully BEVs kill the need for PHEVs in the next few years as the technology continues to rapidly improve around charge rate (<10 minute 10%-80% battery state of charge).
Plug-in hybrids use three times more fuel than manufacturers claim, analysis finds - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/18/plug-in-... - February 18th, 2026
Smoke screen: the growing PHEV emissions scandal - https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/smoke-screen-t... - October 16th, 2025
> Plug-in hybrids use three times more fuel than manufacturers claim, analysis finds > three times more fuel than manufacturers claim
But in the article:
> Porsche hybrids consumed more fuel – around seven litres per 100km – than other PHEVs when the electric motor kicks in, and significantly more than non-PHEVs in combustion engine mode. The lowest fuel consumption levels were found in the cheaper end of the PHEV market, in Kia, Toyota, Ford and Renault vehicles, which often used under one litre per 100km, or as much as 85% less fuel than the Porsche.
So it seems like they are putting all cars in the same bucket based on the worst performing one: Porsche. Pretty misleading
Also, even if the claim applied to all cars, for a Chrysler Pacifica PHEV for example, instead of 82 MPGe (32 mi electric-only range), you'd get ~39.2 mpg (using 6 L/100 km, the figure from the article), which is still better than a Toyota Sienna hybrid at 36 mpg, and way better than a Honda Odyssey at 22 mpg (gas only)
That seems like cherry picking the offenders to invalidate the entire class of vehicles.
If I am buying a PHEV, I am not getting a Porsche or BMW.On the other hand, if I'm in the market for a Porsche or BMW commuter, the cost of fuel is basically negligible and a PHEV for performance or convenience or comfort would influence my decision far more than a relatively insignificant amount of fuel savings.
My Prius Prime has been fantastic for me. It has about a 25 mile charge, which is just enough to get me to work and back.
That range is a significant caveat. If your round trip commute (or one way commute, if you can charge at work) is outside the electric range, then you'll be relying on gas every day. In my situation it's worked out extremely well. I charge at home and only need to fill the gas tank about three or four times a year.
Is this because people are buying them and not plugging them in?
I wonder if they are just being miss-sold. They clearly make no sense if you don’t have somewhere to plug them in.
On the other hand it is clearly working for the GP.
Anecdotally, some brands are better than others. I test drove a Kia hybrid where the gas engine was pathetically underpowered and it ran constantly. Even when the battery was full it was still burning gas.
I think Toyota might be the only company with a good PHEV drive-train. A Prius or Rav4 PHEV can do highway speeds on battery. And they have a heat pump so the gas engine doesn't kick in unless it gets very cold.
Another factor is home charging availability. The Canadian government gives a rebate for PHEV vehicles, but they took away the subsidy to install L2 chargers. It's very attractive right now to buy a PHEV and never charge it just to get the purchase rebate.
> I think Toyota might be the only company with a good PHEV drive-train.
I've lost track a bit, but Ford has a pretty comparable drivetrain (e.g. in the Escape PHEV), and Toyota is sharing their drivetrain with Mazda (e.g. the CX-50 has same drivetrain as RAV4) and Subaru has Toyota-derived drivetrains in the new Crosstrek/Forester hybrids. (Mazda/Subaru don't currently have PHEVs available for their Toyota-sourced hybrids, but that could presumably easily change.)
Availability of various models is wonky now due to US tariffs.
Who is this a problem for?
People taking action against climate change and CO2 emissions. Policymakers, etc. You wouldn't want to subsidize PHEVs in any fashion if they weren't contributing to the targeted outcome of reduced CO2 emissions or fossil fuel consumption.
PHEVs when bought by informed consumers making a financial decision still pencil out just fine here.
It’s the silly regulatory games played by manufacturers and regulators that cause stuff like a hybrid cayenne or 6000lb BMW M5 Touring to exist when neither the buyers or manufacturers want them to exist to begin with.
These things are not remotely in the same actual category even though on paper they might be. They exist for entirely different reasons, one is market based and one is regulatory workarounds and gamesmanship.
I want a PHEV Cayenne. If budget wasn't a concern, that'd actually be my first choice for replacing my ICE SUV. The convenience and flexibility of a PHEV far outweighs any cost savings from fuel economy improvements for me. A Porsche was never about financial sensibility anyway.
The new Prius with the solar charging roof is my dream car. Alas 50,000€ T_T
It's funny to see these gas prices spike as companies are announcing they're killing their EV models here in the US.
It is worse than that. Companies are killing their EV models and discontinuing [sedans](https://www.autoblog.com/features/these-automakers-no-longer...) in favor of trucks and SUVs.
They've been on this path for a while now. The reckoning has to come at some point right?
At this point I don't see a solution to the arms-race of autobesity besides regulation. Cars that represent a larger threat to other road users need to have that externality internalized onto the driver.
Because otherwise we just get things like the Hummer EV which is literally over 9000 lbs.
I thought the same thing. Incredibly short term thinking at the corporate and government level to flip flop. Meanwhile Norway is now 97% EV sales and covered in chargers north to south. Not to mention China's fierce EV market domestically.
Norway is an exceptionally rich country due to oil with huge incentives towards EVs. Don’t extrapolate
The problem with many of these EVs is that they were way too expensive. The main reason companies were producing them is due to regulatory requirements and how emissions standards are calculated, not necessarily because wanted to sell these EVs.
What we really need are incentives for companies to build more affordable EVs. California could play a role here, but given the strong opinions we have about Elon Musk, nothing will be done.
China and increasingly India are building very affordable EVs. You can get this guy for $7700, or full-featured models from $10,000:
https://driveauthority.com/cheapest-ev-car-in-china/
All you really need is a political snap of the fingers to remove tariffs, so they can start selling them in the US.
Of course, there is absolutely no way this will happen with the current administration.
I 100% understand that nothing will be done on the federal level. But california is big enough to make things moving without any federal level law.
For example, what about:
- no sales taxes on new EV sales
- free registration for 5 years
- free bridge tolls for 5 years
That might convince some of these companies to start making EVs again.
They’ll make up the lost revenue by additional taxes on the common people?
I do not know. It is all about priorities.
Raise taxes on gas? Put extra taxes on sell ICE vehicles? Increase registration fees for ICE vehicles? (In short - ICE sales will paying for money lost via EV sales)
I’m not saying it will be easy. I’m saying that if we really want EVs to succeed we can do it.
Yeah seeing more and more 2W, 3W and 4W in India along with rooftop solar which government subsidizes.
Mind you I am living in a Tier 4 “city”.
All the EV tariffs are staying place past the end of the Trump administration because protectionism is now bipartisan.
> All the EV tariffs are staying place past the end of the Trump administration because protectionism is now bipartisan.
Anything Trump supported will continue to be seen as hot garbage after he is removed from office. There is no appetite for protectionism when it has hurt rather than benefitted the American economy.
That heavily depends on the Dem primaries. I think after the unpopularity of Biden and the 2024 loss by Harris there might be more appetite to rock the boat instead of getting another establishment caretaker.
However, the more radical wing of Democrats still have some anti-globalism in them (eg Bernie). But still, imho: Unusual outcomes are on the table for Democratic party leadership at this point.
Confused about this comment. Are you talking about government subsidies and tax incentives? Haven't companies and consumers already been given these incentives? Now that they're drawing down, it's obvious there's a limited market. What needs to happen is real economic demands need to make the market not created ones. Then prices will come down and efficiencies will increase .
No the regulatory requirements and emission standards have nothing to do with affordability. The only reason is just economies of scale. In fact regulatory requirements help because companies like Tesla historically sold their emission credits to other carmakers to make money.
Or just allow Chinese EVs without tariffs.
Would be incredible for US auto consumers.
But might put some of our automakers out of business.
What about no sales taxes on EV purchases (full sales tax exemption) in California?
~4 years ago my wife and I planned on buying one EV and one ICE car purely as a hedge on both. We bought the EV first. After ~1mo of driving it we changed our plans and went for 2 EVs. Even driving long distance (we've made a ~3hr drive around every 10 days for the last 4 years), the convenience factor of EVs has outweighed gas. That doubled once we got solar - there's just something magical about having the operating cost of your vehicle be near zero. Even maintenance is significantly less for the EV. I will never buy a gas car again - it feels like switching from a platter hard drive to a SSD, once you make the switch it's very hard to go back.
Totally agree. We only dipped our toe into a small little cheap ev for shorter journeys in January. Looked at getting a charger fitted, then saw great appeal in a Powerwall+Solar… I’m lucky with roof size and direction - we could get 9kw of panels on. The sun’s been shining nicely the last few days in the UK and it’s honestly beyond magical to see it all working so beautifully, even getting 100w at 6:40 this morning! This week we’ve barely used the grid at all, powering the whole house, car & heating our hot water through the day, all from the roof at no ongoing cost! It was a big investment, but it really does feel like one of the best - it’s giving us a real degree of independence and instant and massive bill reductions.
So I have the exact same feeling! Getting into an ICE car now feels like taking a massive step backwards in so many ways.
BYD are about to launch an EV that charges from 10 to 70% in 5 minutes. As much as I recoil at a brand called "Build Your Dreams", that is quite compelling.
https://www.byd.com/us/news-list/DENZA-Z9GT-to-start-Europes...
See those big T-shaped things in the picture? Those are the charging stations that BYD (or someone) is going to need to build to see those charging speeds. I'm not saying it can't be done, but as one with an 800V Hyundai that has theoretical charging speed of 350kW, don't expect to just plug in at Electrify America and be done in 5 minutes. (Because the highest I've seen on the Hyundai was 243kW, and I've seen that once, and over 200kW only twice.)
But BYD is pushing forward, and though there's some infrastructure to build it'll get there eventually.
On the other hand, 5-minute charging is definitely a luxury thing: most charging is going to be at home, a decent bunch will be destination charging, people doing long trips generally don't mind having the car charge for 30 minutes while they eat dinner in a roadside restaurant, and only a handful of people are insane enough to drive well over 10 hours at a time with only a single 5-minute break.
In practice I bet 5-minute charging will mainly be used to show off for your golf buddies. Co-locate it with the megawatt-scale chargers we'll be building for trucks next to major highways anyways, and it can be offered as a very profitable luxury product without too much extra effort.
There are times when I wished our Ioniq 5 charged more slowly, like when I want to grab a bite. On a good day, back to 80% in 15 minutes, with a 10 minute grace period before the per-minute charges kick in, and there's barely time to sit and eat the meal.
But one thing 5 minute charging would improve is throughput. We're in the middle of a house remodel, and no room in the garage at the moment for the car to get near the charger. So we've been charging at public chargers a lot, and in the three or four times I've hit a public charger recently, I've had to wait on another car to unplug about half the time. Granted, this is the Seattle area where you can't swing a golf club without hitting an EV, but I've had the same problem on road trips, too.
I imagine in China they will be able to build out a network of those much much faster than would be possible here in the USA.
I was thinking more of EU, since BYD won't be selling cars in the US anytime soon, but you make an excellent point that maybe BYD wasn't thinking outside of China for at least the short term.
How much many more wars over gas or oil do we need to finally just take the energy that (for the most part) is available locally and renewable?!
The petrol era is coming to an end. Our current administration might desperately want to remain a petrol state (for reasons that escape me), but it will only delay the inevitable. The EU is not much better either. The writing has been on the wall, and even since the Russian invasion into Ukraine not much has happened.
What is going on? Are we all insane, or is it just intense lobbying of yesterday's petrol industry?
EVs were on track to being mainstream 20 years ago. See the other story about the 90s GM EV1 and associated documentary. All the technology was there in 1999, but every EV in development simultaneously shut down once they started becoming usable.
We are clinging desperately to our horses and buggies.
> for reasons that escape me
The reasons are simple: liberals want renewable energy, therefore renewable energy is bad and must be destroyed.
It's oppositional defiant disorder on a cultural scale.
No- it’s just that people want choice, and not have to pay for tax credits (via lost government tax revenue)
There's a huge difference between getting rid of tax credits, and doing things like forcing unprofitable and obsolete coal plants to say open (https://stateline.org/2026/03/19/trump-is-forcing-coal-plant...) and attempting to arbitrarily ban free market renewable energy projects under no valid legal basis (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn7k6p6k5x5o).
> The EU is not much better either.
the share of renewables of the EU at ~55% of net energy generation is almost twice as high as China's or America's, only Latin America fairs better. Germany essentially front ran this industry 20 years ago. Although as usual it turns out better to be second than first a bit of credit here please.
We should do something here.
Nothing will be done at Federal level.
But california is big enough to make things moving without any federal level law.
For example, what about this:
- no sales taxes on new EV sales
- free registration for 5 years
- free bridge tolls for 5 years
This will be paid by increasing gas taxes, sales taxes on ICE, and registration fees for ICE.
That might convince some of companies to start making EVs again.
If your time horizon is long enough, the best possible investment thesis is to assume that climate change is real and the energy transition is inevitable.
I’ve worked in clean energy software and hardware since 2014. I’m currently looking for a new position, and recently some research firms came out of the woodwork offering to pay me a high consulting rate just to better understand the market. I wasn’t even looking for this, they just came to me. All they said was “interest in this area is increasing.”
P.S., if you’re looking for someone with deep domain knowledge and senior-level engineering skills for your clean energy project, I’m available. https://matthewgerring.com
I'm in Shenzhen currently. Do you know how quiet the city is, even during rush hour? It's amazing. All because almost every car is electric. Even the damn scooters. It'd actually be enjoyable to be outdoor in downtown if they fixed the air pollution… (some of which of course powers these cars… for now.)
The main noise from cars is tire noise. But if traffic moves slowly enough (which it does in a Chinese city during rush hour), you won't hear much.
Even since 2002 I've had to dodge quiet e-bikes in Beijing. They just sneak up on you without any noise, and they have a lot more momentum than a human powered bike.
EVs are only quiet when driving very slowly. At about 50 km/h (30 mph) they are pretty much the same as ICE cars.
What's the general speed limit where you are?
I can't imagine the cars can go very fast in SZ during rush hour, Beijing is the same way.
It’s been a month. Not long enough for a trend. Every time gas prices spike these celebratory pieces come out and then when gas prices drop at the end the consumer markets revealed preferences are made bare again. Let’s find out if this can sustain for more than a year after gas prices drop.
Last time gas spiked above $4/gallon nationally people were trading in their huge gas guzzlers at an extreme loss (because no one else wanted them either). I read an article about someone who was contemplating losing $30k on their trade-in instead of continuing to pay high gas prices.
(I don't know what my point is, just that people have short memories, and are generally speaking not rational about purchases, or money in general.)
The trend has existed especially outside the US for several years now, this is just an acceleration of that trend.
It seems really unlikely to me that 2 weeks worth of high oil prices is anything more than a rounding error in BYD's years (decade?) long bet on electric cars.
Even if they tripled their sales for the last two weeks, it wouldn't be relavent to if their bet will ultimately pay off.
Extrapolate this into a forever war where oil is increasingly expensive week after week.
I’ll trust the markets instead of some emotional ideological posts
The oil spike clearly seems it will be short-term. Once the Iran war is over oil will plummet. Car makers can't make decisions on short-term spikes.
Guys I own a BYD and love it, but oil prices have risen in the past, like, two days. Perhaps the headline is a bit sensationalized?
For what it's worth, I feel like it's perfectly logical to make any current new car purchase choices taking into account the US history of Middle East forever wars and that the Strait of Hormuz will probably be a deathtrap for years at this point.
It also helps that BYD cars are very aggressively priced and are genuienly pretty good. Here in the UK they are getting pretty popular and it's easy to see why - legacy companies like VW and Audi are (for the lack of better word) taking the piss with their pricing and with penny pinching on literally everything.
And it's not just BYD. A couple of brands I'd literally never heard of till a year ago, Jaecoo and Omoda now seem to be getting pretty popular, saw quite a few when I was over in Glasgow.
you got the smartest man on Earth, Mr. Orange telling American to drill drill drill while American is losing its edge on EV.
The important thing to always realize is that Trump optimizes for one thing only: himself. Everyone else doesn't matter.
What I find most amazing about all this is that this is literally the market that Tesla was aiming for. Affordable EVs for regular people was their whole thing, they were years ahead of BYD, already had an established brand, they just had to keep doing what they were doing, adding cheaper models to their lineup, and they would be much stronger competitors.
I'm sorry to be that guy, but can we reintroduce a good dose of skepticism in our mental diets?
BYD was already selling a ton of cars when the oil prices were "low", of course there's some very creative accounting business moves you would expect from a Chinese company like BYD ( companies from other places have their own peculiarities too ).
Gas prices have been "sky high" for a week and people who are under financial stress just decided to ditch their cars and buy a brand new BYD? Are we children now? listening bedtime stories?
The concept of electric vehicle is technically superior to support the context and lifestyle a large majority of people have. It will "win" over time. There is no need to this bullshit simplistic feel-good articles.
Btw, the the market movements of people trying to get rid of their gas-guzzling SUVs when prices are high and trade them for a smaller and more economical car ( what they should have been doing in the first place.. ) already happened in the past many times, there is no news here. But these movements don't happen in a time span of a week or a couple weeks.
Sorry for the rant, but between AI's "Absolutely, you're entirely right!" and these bullshit articles.. I don't know.
To be clear: EV's will "win" and BYD has been selling a ton of cars because they are cheap and not terrible right out of the gate, also people don't have much disposable income.
Just be aware of journalists relating 2 unrelated things happening at the same time using "among" and "as" and discount the article accordingly. If you didn't pay money for the article, they will utilize click and engagement bait. Of course a week of increased oil prices hasn't changed any measurable purchasing patterns as the title implies.
Very true. It's not like EV owners were feeling regret when gas hit the (mythical ) $2/gallon. Honestly, while it's fun to know I've "saved" $5k or so in gas costs during the 4 years I've owned my EV, if saving money was my only goal, I would have paid cash for a slightly used efficient four cylinder gas car.
It's not like EV owners were feeling regret when gas hit the (mythical ) $2/gallon.
Gas could be free, and I'd still have no regrets. Because an EV is simply the better vehicle. And I think after over a decade of mass-produced EVs that maybe it's time to get away from "saves on gas" or "good for the environment", and maybe start marketing as "full every time you pull out of the garage", or something. Kind of like Mazda's old commercials for their Wankel engine cars: "piston engine goes 'boing', but the Mazda goes 'hmmmmm'".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHzeGEHWMjo
I'd be more interested in EVs if they didn't come with significant privacy and complexity trade-offs.
I don't want a door handle that can't open in an emergency. I don't want my vehicle constantly phoning home to the mothership (sadly I have to deal with that today, I really need to go disable that functionality). I certainly don't want a touchscreen through which all controls are routed.
I have a 20-year-old Jeep with significant mechanical problems; I should really convert it to a BEV.
I'd be more interested in EVs if they didn't come with significant privacy and complexity trade-offs.
You're going to be really disappointed when you go to look at new ICE vehicles. This "EVs are a privacy nightmare!" trope needs to die, all cars do that now.
I don't want a door handle that can't open in an emergency.
Only one car manufacturer to my knowledge has that problem, just don't buy one of those. Again, nothing to do with electric cars.
I certainly don't want a touchscreen through which all controls are routed.
So far, other than the poorly-designed door handles of one manufacturer, nothing you've listed is unique to EVs. All you've done is describe "most new cars".
I understand modern vehicles are like that, hence my complaint about my current one.
But, by definition, most EVs are modern. That's not true of ICE vehicles, hence the tradeoffs.
Fair enough, point taken.
> Gas prices have been "sky high" for a week and people who are under financial stress just decided to ditch their cars and buy a brand new BYD? Are we children now? listening bedtime stories?
Have you actually seen the news and the situation? Gas prices will continue to rise and will stay high for at least 3-5 years, given the damaged infrastructure and how long it will take to rebuild. And that's if nothing else happens, so the situation could get a lot worse
This means 2 things: 1) it might be a better alternative to drive electric (depends on the numbers), and 2) if enough people start preferring EVs, prices for EVs might spike in the next 1-2 years. So buying now could be a good move depending on how things turn out
Russia has been recovering from Ukrainian drone strikes again oil industries within months. And Ukraine inflicted much serious damage than Iran on Gulf states.
Drones with 100-150kg just not capable of inflicting hard to recover damage. What they are good is striking repeatedly. But judging by numbers Iran is not capable any longer of sustained stacks with hundreds of drones per day.
Very interesting take. Not sure about the comparisons though: 1) Russia is a huge powerhouse that can do a lot on its own, I don't think Gulf states have the same capability to recover (at least that's what energy analysts are saying), 2) The US claimed they had completely maimed Iran in the first few days of the war, saying they had fully destroyed their navy and their missile launching capabilities. However, that clearly doesn't seem to be the case, and yesterday Iran even downed an F35, which until then was thought of as an almost impossible feat
I guess there's a lot up in the air right now, so I personally wouldn't bet on things getting better that quickly
> Have you actually seen the news and the situation?
Have you seen what's happened to wholesale power market prices? Have you seen that BYD's care sales in 2026 are down y/y?
Trusting anecdotal hype from BYD salesmen and a renewables blog isn't sensible.
I wasn't talking about BYD in particular, nor referencing any numbers or quotes from the blog. I was responding to the above comment mocking/doubting people's decisions about EV purchases and showing how that contrasts with the current macro situation
Feel free to expand on the wholesale power market prices you are referring to though, not sure what your take is
> I wasn't talking about BYD in particular,
You quoted the parent's mention of BYD.
Wholesale power market prices are responding to shocks in the natural gas market from two wars that disrupted those supply chains. Solar and batteries have been and will continue to he the cheapest source of power, and globally, deployment is accelerating.
Not so much in the US, where our braindead political culture is intent on ignoring the obvious economic advantage of renewables, but definitely everywhere else in the world.
> Solar and batteries have been and will continue to he the cheapest source of power, and globally, deployment is accelerating.
I think storage is great and solar has a place, but this is not true unless you discard reliability and other features, which should be in the price. Solar plus storage for baseload power matching requires huge overbuilds. Even in the last few years, before the AI hype, installed utility scale renewables costs went up in the US. It's not just the hardware or national politics.
And if you can't get renewables interconnected in a couple years, then the install rate won't lower the carbon of the existing grid mix charging your car.
> Gas prices have been "sky high" for a week and people who are under financial stress just decided to ditch their cars and buy a brand new BYD? Are we children now? listening bedtime stories?
The situation is something that makes people pause for a second.
Like everyone knows that EVs are the future, but when gas is fine, status quo fine, that future can be a fuzzy thing in the distance and it's really easy to shut off your brain, live in the present, and not really do any thinking and just go through the motions.
A sudden oil shock puts the issue of EVs on the front burner and gives people reason to think about things for a moment.
This article is anecdotal with quotes from a BYD salesman about their product, and it doesn't mention that BYD's sales are down in Jan-Feb. 2026 (-36% y/y).
electrek.co is a renewables (biased) blog.
At any one time I would assume there are thousands of people in the world who are replacing their existing vehicle right at this very moment for normal reasons.
> I'm sorry to be that guy, but can we reintroduce a good dose of skepticism in our mental diets?
Of headlines? Always. Of the content of the article? Not without you providing counterevidence.
Speaking of the content:
* BYD has seen an uptick in demand for EVs
* "At one [BYD] dealership in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, demand is so high that it booked a month’s worth of orders in just the past two weeks"
* another dealership nearby had to hire more salespeople
* small uptick from Edmunds for people researching EVs in relevant period[1]
1: https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/electrified-vehicle-researc...
I see no reason to downvote this, so I upvote it.
I think you're missing something. This war is an inflection point. Consumer behavior is likely to change after it.
So yes, this is just a transient thing...but I think the effects will be permanent.
i cant wait until we can have these cars in the US. looks like I'm going to be pretty geriatric by that time but it's absolutely stupid how many ICE cars are still all over the place at this point
China is going to take over the world economically off of this energy crisis. They print solar panels like America prints money.
Will be so funny watching the rug pull when the cheap overnight electricity rates disappear, especially in the UK where electricity is very expensive.
Not if. When. You never 'win' in the UK, not in the long term
Ah yes, I'm sure in the Philippines, where the average yearly salary is ~ $4k USD, everyone is rushing out to buy brand new EVs tomorrow, which they will plug into their tin-roofed shack to charge.
In reality, most working class Filipinos travel via public transit or ICE scooter.
I know they write this stuff to generate clicks but at least pretend to try.
Cool cool they can pay more for gas then. As an Albertan I approve completely.
> public transit
Metros and light-rail systems tend to use electricity. Manila has both.
> ICE scooter
You know EVs are allowed to be scooters too, right?
> You know EVs are allowed to be scooters too, right?
You are rebutting a completely different statement which was not said, and arguing in bad faith.
The biggest hindrance to EV adoption are EV people and their religious fervor to win at all costs.
What am I trying to win? Who am I hindering from getting an EV?
> While Asia, particularly Southeast Asian countries like Thailand and the Philippines, has higher EV adoption rates than those of the US and Europe, at around 40%, they are still hit hard by rising oil prices.
That figure is highly misleading. Yes, 48% of new vehicle sales in Thailand are now EVs, but their share of total vehicles on the road is much smaller: I can't find recent figures, but it'll be far less than 10%. (Share of new sales was under 20% until late last year.)
The Philippines is even further behind, with share of new sales under 10%.
Of course total fleet composition will eventually converge on new sales, but given that the lifespans of cars are measured in decades, it takes longer than you'd think.
To be fair, they do explicitly say "higher EV adoption rates", not "people who already have EV".
For a car manufacturer, aren't new sales what matters? BYD isn't selling used cars.
New sales are the leading indicator to total fleet composition turnover. As oil prices stay high into the future, and monthly sales of EVs continues to increase, it speeds fleet turnover from combustion to EVs.
Ember Energy: ASEAN emerges as a new leader in global EV adoption - https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/asean-emerges-as-a-n... - December 16th, 2025
You can see how this looks over a longer term using Norway's data as they transitioned to ~100% EV sales: https://robbieandrew.github.io/EV/
So much data, but they're missing the total share of EVs on the road, and on that figure Norway is still only a third of the way to 100%:
https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/one-third-of-cars-o...
And Norway is a "best case" as a wealthy country where people turn over their cars pretty quickly. The Philippines is at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Average age of cars in Norway is higher than in many other countries due to high taxes on cars.
And then in China number of cars per capita is much less then in West. As more and more people there can afford a car and that car will be EV, transitioning to mostly EV should happen faster than in Norway.
It's not rational to expect owners to discard equipment long before the end of its service life, especially when the operational costs are not an order of magnitude lower.
Without time travel or CCCP circa 1955 property controls, a 100% EV ownership benchmark is unreasonable.
Certainly, it's going to take time, but peak global combustion vehicle sales are long behind us (2017). Global fleet will turn over to EVs eventually, we're just arguing time horizon based on how quickly EV deployment ramps and combustion sales are destroyed. Combustion vehicle sales will only keep declining. Developing countries will soak up cheap EVs made by China, they will skip over combustion vehicles with higher total cost of ownership. Combustion vehicles will age out eventually as EV sales continue to increase.
> Globally, over 1-in-5 (22%) of new cars sold were electric in 2024. This share was 92% in Norway, and in China, it was almost 50%.
In 2025, it was 1-in-4 (25%). What will expensive oil do? It will pull these trajectories more vertical.
Global oil price stuck in triple digits. Goldman Sachs says it may stay there for years - https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/20/energy/oil-gas-prices-intl-hn... - March 20th, 2026
Our World In Data: Tracking global data on electric vehicles - https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales
Ember Energy: China Cleantech Exports Data Explorer - https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e...
The World Hit ‘Peak’ Gas-Powered Vehicle Sales — in 2017 - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-30/world-hit... | https://archive.today/p2hl1 - January 30th, 2024
Electric Cars Pass a Crucial Tipping Point in 23 Countries - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-28/electric-... | https://archive.today/e8XSt - August 27th, 2023