Are high gas prices good news for EVs? It’s complicated. | MIT Technology Review

I live in a dense city with plentiful public transportation options and limited parking, so I don’t own a car. I’m often utterly clueless about the current price of gasoline. But as the conflict in Iran has escalated, fossil-fuel prices have been on a roller-coaster, and I’ve started paying attention. In the US, average gas prices are $3.98 a gallon as of March 25, up from under $3 before the war started. Online there’s been what almost looks like cheerleading about this volatility from some folks, including EV owners—some of the social media posts and op-eds have read as nearly gleeful. The subtext (or even the text) is “I told you so.”  Don’t get me wrong—this could be an opportunity for EVs to make headway around the world. But there are plenty of reasons that even the carless among us should be concerned about a sustained rise in fossil-fuel prices. Historically, this is exactly the sort of moment that’s pushed people to reevaluate how they get around. During the oil crisis of the 1970s, Americans switched to smaller, more efficient cars in droves. It was a major opportunity for Japanese automakers, whose vehicles tended to fit this mold better than those produced by their US counterparts. We’re already seeing early signs that people are interested in going electric. One US-based online car marketplace said that search traffic for EVs was up 20% following the initial attack on Iran. For more popular models like the Tesla Model Y, traffic nearly doubled. And the interes...