There’s a massive difference between now and 2022, as soon as the prices started rising there was panic buying. There are a lot more EVs on the road today and it’s still very easy to get petrol even though the prices has spiked almost 20% in a month
When I bought an EV and started charging at home my dad gave me the approved talking point of ‘what if there’s a power cut?’.
‘When was the last time there was a long power cut and when was the last time the petrol supply got hit?’
EVs are now a quarter of new car sales, plug in hybrids another 10%. The UK fleet on the road is 5% EV. These are probably driven more than other vehicles for the per mile savings, and high mileage drivers like commuters and taxi drivers can now access long range EVs for £10-15k, compared to £1-2k fuel savings per year.
Given all that we’re probably already taking 5-10% out of car oil demand, and that’s going to ramp up very quickly.
EVs will also play a big role in moving around electricity demand which will be very important for the grid. In theory for the first time ever we could have a grid with zero dispatchable fossil fuel plants, we could have a nuclear baseload and use EVs to shape the demand curve so we don’t need gas peakers in the morning and evening peaks.
New cars are also coming out with 8-20 minute charge times, which will remove the issue over access to home chargers.
The big outstanding problem is that because industrial electricity is so expensive, public charging is inherently expensive in Britain. A combination of short sightedness and ironically, naive green policies have increased electricity costs which will hold back both EV and heat pump adoption.
We need to do more to extend on street AC chargers in residential areas, which will be able to access cheap off peak electricity. The more we build that out, the easier it is for people to charge their cars, and the more that the EV fleet can buffer electricity demand.
And we probably need to do more to surface cheap off peak electricity as a result of feast and famine intermittent supply to public chargers. So essentially when people see the wind blowing in the trees outside their flat they think ‘I could charge up my car now and save £20’. It’s not ideal though for people to have to change their behaviour around the vehicle in that way.
It’s a great argument against the climate change deniers, it shifts reliance away from middle eastern fuel supplies, although many of those assholes wanted to join Trump at the beginning of the war, funny how they’ve gone quiet.
Wait a minute, are you saying moving away from fossil fuels and developing homegrown renewable infrastructure not only improves our air and water quality and slows climate change, but also reduces our dependency on evil petro states?? Why if only we knew this 50 years ago !
Tesco was out of fuel yesterday apart from 99 momentum, it was like i had my own private fuel station. Loved it.
Very funny seeing this after a few weeks ago there were all the headlines about how there’s a massive U-turn on EVs and how they’re all collapsing despite sales increasing every month.
Good article from the guardian here on comments about it:
8 comments
There’s a massive difference between now and 2022, as soon as the prices started rising there was panic buying. There are a lot more EVs on the road today and it’s still very easy to get petrol even though the prices has spiked almost 20% in a month
When I bought an EV and started charging at home my dad gave me the approved talking point of ‘what if there’s a power cut?’.
‘When was the last time there was a long power cut and when was the last time the petrol supply got hit?’
EVs are now a quarter of new car sales, plug in hybrids another 10%. The UK fleet on the road is 5% EV. These are probably driven more than other vehicles for the per mile savings, and high mileage drivers like commuters and taxi drivers can now access long range EVs for £10-15k, compared to £1-2k fuel savings per year.
Given all that we’re probably already taking 5-10% out of car oil demand, and that’s going to ramp up very quickly.
EVs will also play a big role in moving around electricity demand which will be very important for the grid. In theory for the first time ever we could have a grid with zero dispatchable fossil fuel plants, we could have a nuclear baseload and use EVs to shape the demand curve so we don’t need gas peakers in the morning and evening peaks.
New cars are also coming out with 8-20 minute charge times, which will remove the issue over access to home chargers.
The big outstanding problem is that because industrial electricity is so expensive, public charging is inherently expensive in Britain. A combination of short sightedness and ironically, naive green policies have increased electricity costs which will hold back both EV and heat pump adoption.
We need to do more to extend on street AC chargers in residential areas, which will be able to access cheap off peak electricity. The more we build that out, the easier it is for people to charge their cars, and the more that the EV fleet can buffer electricity demand.
And we probably need to do more to surface cheap off peak electricity as a result of feast and famine intermittent supply to public chargers. So essentially when people see the wind blowing in the trees outside their flat they think ‘I could charge up my car now and save £20’. It’s not ideal though for people to have to change their behaviour around the vehicle in that way.
It’s a great argument against the climate change deniers, it shifts reliance away from middle eastern fuel supplies, although many of those assholes wanted to join Trump at the beginning of the war, funny how they’ve gone quiet.
Wait a minute, are you saying moving away from fossil fuels and developing homegrown renewable infrastructure not only improves our air and water quality and slows climate change, but also reduces our dependency on evil petro states?? Why if only we knew this 50 years ago !
Tesco was out of fuel yesterday apart from 99 momentum, it was like i had my own private fuel station. Loved it.
Very funny seeing this after a few weeks ago there were all the headlines about how there’s a massive U-turn on EVs and how they’re all collapsing despite sales increasing every month.
Good article from the guardian here on comments about it:
[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/21/west-carmakers-retreat-electric-vehicle-risks-irrelevance-iran-war-evs-china](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/21/west-carmakers-retreat-electric-vehicle-risks-irrelevance-iran-war-evs-china)
FT articles:
March 22nd: [Global carmakers retreat en masse from electric vehicle plans](https://www.ft.com/content/1198863d-4974-4c4d-be5f-9e7152045b26?syn-25a6b1a6=1)
March 27th: [Oil market chaos will supercharge the electric car shift](https://www.ft.com/content/f9f58e28-0ce4-4640-8813-0abc31e466c5?syn-25a6b1a6=1)
It’s hardly earth shattering is it ?
More EVs. Less oil.