Recent events? Russia going rogue and the US going haywire both happened a decade ago at least. Those are two major suppliers of fossil fuel for Europe. The current trend was bound to happen, it only required time for the industry to pivot.
I feel EVs at this moment are right at the level of “I’m gonna buy a new car, but maybe I’ll wait for the one after before I jump into an EV”. Better batteries (solid state), better charging speeds and more fast charger availability seem to have a large group of people waiting.
What I can’t see doing is buying a new ICE now. If you just want something to hold you over a few years, buy used or lease.
What a price shock does is force people to acknowledge how much money they’ve been spending on edge-cases, making many of them reconsider how much it’s really worth to, for example, go on an all-day drive without every stopping for more than a few minutes or whether the SUV/pickup truck aesthetic is worth paying 50% more every day.
EVs are a good deal in much of the world. They're more quiet, lower maintenance costs, lower fuel costs, therefore lower cost of ownership and operation. And they have less volatile costs as electricity prices swing less than gas prices.
Long-term trends show electricity and gas prices decouple.
It's just that every time gas prices spike, people look into solutions and find out these truths.
Climate change has been in the zeitgeist for decades now. Pretty sure many people are cognizant of this and want to move away from fossil fuels. This is just a boost to do so.
The most important thing right now in addition to fuel prices is how much cheaper EVs are getting because of innovation in China.
Even wilder to project other peoples decisions so naively
Europe is heading into the worst energy crisis since at least the 1970s, possibly worse. And yet very little is happening to prepare for it. Definitely some fun times ahead.
PHEVs make no sense for category (A) people because there is no range-anxiety if you home-charge every day. Typical drivers do 40km a day on average. Even an entry-level Tesla model 3 has >530km of range, and goes up to 750km for the model 3.
PHEVs also make no sense for category (B) people, because the PHEV has just 50km of range. So if you don't plug in all the time, you're basically driving a gasoline car with an extra engine and a battery, increasing weight (= fuel) and maintenance cost.
Various studies of real-world usage have shown PHEVs are less efficient because the behavior of its drivers. They'd be better off just driving a regular hybrid, like a Corolla.
The only area where PHEVs make sense are people who drive short-distances on a daily basis, plug in the car always at home, yet make frequent (say weekend) long trips of 6+ hours of driving without any breaks, or long trips to remote areas with no charging infrastructure. This is a pretty rare combination. Most PHEVs are traditionally owned by urbanites lured by a green dream and green subsidies, who're better off getting a pure EV or just an efficient boring hybrid.
US/california would probably be 50c/kwh (though gas there is close to $7)
all other US states are less (for now, datacenters, ugh)
I recently looked into renting an EV in Spain and instead opted for gas. It seems like the public charging infrastructure is just not all that reliable there (e.g. broken chargers + delivering less power than advertised) and fragmented when it comes to paying across many apps. Maybe this is specific to Spain after all.
https://www.renaultgroup.com/en/magazine/energy-and-powertra...
European firms like ZF, Valeo, MAHLE, and Schaffler along with British firms like AEM have been working with Indian manufacturers for a couple years now to integrate supply chains for mass-producing EESMs.
EESMs as well as the larger OEM story played a role in helping land the EU-India and the UK-India FTAs because the supply chains for French+Italian (Renault, Stellantis), Japanese (Toyota, Honda), Korean (Hyundai-Kia), and Indian automotive manufacturers merged.
On the other hand, EESM EVs aren't a thing here in North America nor China yet.
[0] - https://leandesign.com/nissan-ariya-magnet-free-motor-teardo...
[1] - https://www.bmwblog.com/2025/02/20/bmw-gen6-electric-motors-...
[2] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/india-revs-up-alternate-...
