Slightly off-topic, but can anyone comment on the quality of the EV charging infrastructure in the EU? Outside of owning an EV and charging it at home/work, are fast chargers reliable and abundant enough for road trips?
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.
Same with Nissan [0], BMW [1], and Indian EVs [2].
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.
And demand will probably go up a lot further still. Right now fuel prices are kept artificially low by every country releasing their strategic reserves, but these will run out at some point.
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.
Four weeks ago, California received the last of the shipments coming from the Strait. Everyone said CA only has on hand six weeks of supply. There was a bunch of panic baiting posts at the time. I haven't seen any suggesting that the supply is coming to an end, but maybe I've missed stories of resupplies coming in to the west coast??
Isn't the US self-sufficient in both oil and natural gas? Most impacted is East/South Asia, second most is Europe, then US is the least impacted by far, although the US will experience inflation on imported goods.
Iran has no choice but to make a deal, if they don't want their country turned into a parking lot. With complete air superiority, taking their power plants and a few bridges would lead to complete economic collapse as seen in Cuba.
Frankly you sound like a Russian shill who will then go on to say that Ukraine fight is not Europe's just like Iran war is not an American concern (I agree that trump shouldn't have gone in there) but the two situations are not equivalent.
It’s so wild to me to make a multiyear purchasing decision based upon recent events. My next car will be an EV not suggesting it’s a bad decision however I’m still blown away by statistics like this.
> It’s so wild to me to make a multiyear purchasing decision based upon recent events.
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.
We're commenting on the fact that demand has surged in the last few months. Russian and American behavior from a decade ago didn't (directly) cause that.
There was definitely a build up. Trump was held back from being Trump in the first term. Even with that, there was no recourse for any of the actions that he took. There were also the court decisions that happened in between terms. So this term, he naturally feels no need to hold back. It is unlikely this Trump term would happen had his first not happened.
It moves up people's purchasing plans. If you were expecting to replace your vehicle in the next two years because of performance degradation, and now your fuel costs are substantially higher, then a purchase today might make more sense than your original plan.
Of even if people are just considering and EV as compared to an ICE car they may think "you know what, who knows when fuel prices will come down? maybe I just switch now!"
The thing is a lot of people might be right at the tipping point of buying an EV and then some news like this comes out and it pushes them over the line.
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.
It’s not a bad idea. I bought in 2022 and the range of newer EVs is already a lot more than mine. But I really enjoy my car and don’t have much pressure to take so many roadtrips.
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.
That makes no sense to me. I've had an EV for five years and right now the infrastructure is fantastic in comparison. There are chargers everywhere, they're fast enough, and the prices are reasonable. The batteries are also quite large. I see absolutely no reason to buy an IC car any more. Many people have solar panels installed, making the commute practically free.
Renault seems to have made a sensibly priced range with some classic styles too. Familiar cars but with EV, rather than early adopter cars like the Nissan Leaf or weird tech bro cars.
"make a multiyear purchasing decision based upon recent events" You have this all backwards. The fact is that for many decades petroleum is an unreliable energy source due to geopolitical factors, but people have been pretending that was not the case. What has happened in the last two months is people have finally realized the long-term truth.
Yeah buying an EV instead of a gas car is a hedge that doesn't cost much. There is an asymmetry in the upside and downside risk. The downside risk is all on gas with no upside. No downside for the EV.
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.
Well most of the increase in prices goes into petroleum companies' profits (at least the ones that can export). So it's technically not lost and will be invested somehow.
Like a Carbon tax, the money doesn't disappear. But to whom it gets distributed, that's another story...
Slightly off-topic, but can anyone comment on the quality of the EV charging infrastructure in the EU? Outside of owning an EV and charging it at home/work, are fast chargers reliable and abundant enough for road trips?
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.
Since the article is about Renault, I wanted to mention their EVs use motors with no rare-earth metals.
https://www.renaultgroup.com/en/magazine/energy-and-powertra...
Same with Nissan [0], BMW [1], and Indian EVs [2].
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-...
And demand will probably go up a lot further still. Right now fuel prices are kept artificially low by every country releasing their strategic reserves, but these will run out at some point.
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.
I think perhaps the huge surge in EV demand has something to do with preparing for the energy crisis
The US is on pace to run out of its strategic reserve in ~2 weeks.
Four weeks ago, California received the last of the shipments coming from the Strait. Everyone said CA only has on hand six weeks of supply. There was a bunch of panic baiting posts at the time. I haven't seen any suggesting that the supply is coming to an end, but maybe I've missed stories of resupplies coming in to the west coast??
Isn't the US self-sufficient in both oil and natural gas? Most impacted is East/South Asia, second most is Europe, then US is the least impacted by far, although the US will experience inflation on imported goods.
There are no export restrictions, US oil consumers compete with the world to purchase US oil.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/12/business/cushing-oil-inventor...
I don't think that's true, but if it is then Iran would be foolish to make a deal right now.
Iran has no choice but to make a deal, if they don't want their country turned into a parking lot. With complete air superiority, taking their power plants and a few bridges would lead to complete economic collapse as seen in Cuba.
Frankly you sound like a Russian shill who will then go on to say that Ukraine fight is not Europe's just like Iran war is not an American concern (I agree that trump shouldn't have gone in there) but the two situations are not equivalent.
I don't know what kind of straw man you built up in your head, but I can assure you I don't believe in any of that.
It’s so wild to me to make a multiyear purchasing decision based upon recent events. My next car will be an EV not suggesting it’s a bad decision however I’m still blown away by statistics like this.
> It’s so wild to me to make a multiyear purchasing decision based upon recent events.
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.
We're commenting on the fact that demand has surged in the last few months. Russian and American behavior from a decade ago didn't (directly) cause that.
There was definitely a build up. Trump was held back from being Trump in the first term. Even with that, there was no recourse for any of the actions that he took. There were also the court decisions that happened in between terms. So this term, he naturally feels no need to hold back. It is unlikely this Trump term would happen had his first not happened.
Recent consequences, the events began long ago :)
It moves up people's purchasing plans. If you were expecting to replace your vehicle in the next two years because of performance degradation, and now your fuel costs are substantially higher, then a purchase today might make more sense than your original plan.
Of even if people are just considering and EV as compared to an ICE car they may think "you know what, who knows when fuel prices will come down? maybe I just switch now!"
The thing is a lot of people might be right at the tipping point of buying an EV and then some news like this comes out and it pushes them over the line.
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.
It’s not a bad idea. I bought in 2022 and the range of newer EVs is already a lot more than mine. But I really enjoy my car and don’t have much pressure to take so many roadtrips.
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.
That makes no sense to me. I've had an EV for five years and right now the infrastructure is fantastic in comparison. There are chargers everywhere, they're fast enough, and the prices are reasonable. The batteries are also quite large. I see absolutely no reason to buy an IC car any more. Many people have solar panels installed, making the commute practically free.
Renault seems to have made a sensibly priced range with some classic styles too. Familiar cars but with EV, rather than early adopter cars like the Nissan Leaf or weird tech bro cars.
The Renault 5 is selling like crazy.
Makes sense why, reasonable price, good design, made in Europe EV.
It's what a lot of people have been waiting for.
You're not wrong - I see about 10 of these a day driving around. And that's a car model that is only about a year old. It's selling like hot cakes.
"make a multiyear purchasing decision based upon recent events" You have this all backwards. The fact is that for many decades petroleum is an unreliable energy source due to geopolitical factors, but people have been pretending that was not the case. What has happened in the last two months is people have finally realized the long-term truth.
I'm well aware things can change, but having my everyday commute costs generally decoupled from geopolitics seems nice
Yeah buying an EV instead of a gas car is a hedge that doesn't cost much. There is an asymmetry in the upside and downside risk. The downside risk is all on gas with no upside. No downside for the EV.
> based upon recent events
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.
That and governments pushing to ban non-EV cars over a certain timeline while subsidizing more expensive EVs.
The most important thing right now in addition to fuel prices is how much cheaper EVs are getting because of innovation in China.
> It’s so wild to me to make a multiyear purchasing decision based upon recent events.
Even wilder to project other peoples decisions so naively
I bought one because I had a feeling that the price of used EVs was about to shoot up
This also coincides with EVs becoming better and cheaper
I think this is people that were thinking of getting an EV anyway and they decided to do it earlier
Pretty frustrating that so many people have to face the actual crisis to actually react to it. And that’s the case in so many situations
What is there to not understand. Given large enough population there's always someone ready to update.
I'm not considering replacing my car just yet, but supplementing with an electric scooter or bike might be nice
as a charging station network founder, I can confirm, the summer has never started off this welll.
A silver lining to the storm clouds of war.
Yep, Trump enacted a de facto global carbon tax.
The carbon tax is supposed to finance things, what Trump has done is more like forcing the crisis. More like an acceleration
Well most of the increase in prices goes into petroleum companies' profits (at least the ones that can export). So it's technically not lost and will be invested somehow.
Like a Carbon tax, the money doesn't disappear. But to whom it gets distributed, that's another story...
We went with a PHEV when I renewed our lease last month, specifically because gas prices
Curious why not pure EV?
Range anxiety is probably the only reason one would choose a PHEV these days. They’re slightly cheaper also but that’s unlikely to be a factor.
might depend on the country.
US/california would probably be 50c/kwh (though gas there is close to $7)
all other US states are less (for now, datacenters, ugh)