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One of the unintended consequences of the war in Iran has been a global boom in electric vehicle (EV) sales. Gasoline-only cars have now dropped to less than half of all cars sold globally
The main driver of the EV boom is the high price of gasoline and diesel fuels. Those costs are a burden, but it’s a win for clean air and the climate. EVs, of course, draw power from the electrical grid. But even the dirtiest source of electrical power, coal, amounts to a cleaner total drive than gasoline power over the lifetime of a car.
In Germany, Europe’s largest car market, EV sales rose 75 percent year-over-year in August. One in every three passenger cars sold in Germany this August was all electric. Europe’s overall EV sales rose over 50 percent in the year ending August. In France, EV sales more than doubled.
In other large car markets, such as Brazil, India, Australia, and Vietnam, sales of EVs doubled in the four months following the start of the Iran war, compared to a year earlier.
In China, by far the world’s biggest car market, about 55 percent of car sales are EVs or hybrids. In August, not a single non-EV cracked the top ten most popular cars.
So if prices fall, will many drivers return to petroleum? People who switch to EVs tend to stick, but that often depends on how good the charging infrastructure is.
Sources: Oilprice.com; EPA; IEA; KBA; European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association; NYT; Mobility Global via Nikkei Asia