Can anyone speak to the long term impacts of this? Like is gas going to remain high for years (or even worse get rationed) and I should trade in for an EV now?
I replaced my old Forester with the new Trailseeker. Stsrting price (and interest rate) is much better than the R2.
I can slide in an 8’ board no problem when I’m too lazy to use the roof rack.
I haven’t upgraded the wheels or tires yet but the stock ones have had no problem going up and down the old logging and forest service roads of NW Oregon and SW Washington.
If the Toyota sienna had a plugin ev option that would be really compelling for me. The electric van market is surprisingly sad. I currently only boogie board because it fits in my car.
I’m really tempted by current sienna hybrids, my current gas one gets 20mpg on a good day. Plug-in for the daily school commutes and after school activities would be great
PHEV are more convenient and generally better. A Toyota Rav4 PHEV, Prius or may others, are shockingly fuel efficient relagtive to older car stock. I had not replaced a car for 16 years and found getting actual 52-54mpg out of a much larger and heavier vehicle genuinely shocking.
Most people have a relatively short commute where the modest range of PHEV still allows them to mostly be on electric.
Compared to a bmw i3, it’s price and (anecdotal) reliability are kind of comparable, but the annual cost is >2x more, and the carbon footprint is >4x.
(I had to pick a slightly older i3 to compare, since it’s discontinued).
As you point out, the rav4 is bigger. A lightning truck is bigger than the rav4 hybrid, but with lower purchase cost (2023, base for both). The lightning has higher per year costs though.
It’s pretty clearly game over for ICE/hybrids. Tariffs and bribed politicians can’t change the underlying price and performance advantage.
In Connecticut it is only now cheaper to use electric instead of gas in my prius prime. I get 50-53 mpg highway, even over very long distances I drive to family in STL a few times a years, and electric is $0.33/kWh. So even at around 4 miles/kWh I'm paying $0.0825/mile for electric which breaks even right around $4.25/gallon. So it's really going to depend upon where you live.
That's not to say I wouldn't buy an electric car tomorrow if I had the option. My somewhat frequent long drives make gas slightly preferable but these days I'd much prefer electric.
For someone who drives long distances or travels in the Western US, I think hybrids make more sense than EV. I know in Texas I could get an EV but it would extend trips quite a bit and make planning more important in when and where to charge the vehicle.
I can't see myself buying a new pure-ICE vehicle again right now. The mechanical advantages of the e-CVT are too nifty, the mileage benefits too great, for me to think of spending $40k on a car just to have more "fun horsepower".
Mazda/Toyota hybrids and the Ford Maverick are on my shortlist if the time comes for me to replace my paid-off car.
The main point of news I heard was that the Iran infrastructure the US destroyed, in a time where they are allowed to repair it and not just get bombed again, will take three years to repair. Oil prices don't get "cheap" again this side of 2030. Not to mention that there is a bunch of Russian infrastructure that is still on the chopping block to be destroyed by Ukraine as that war continues. Which has the same time it takes to rebuild issues.
When people have an incentive to build that fast and cut corners (which they will). Under normal circumstances dotting the i's and crossing they t's, it's 5 to 7 years. Remember, the US is temporarily running low on missiles because of how much explosives Trump dropped on Iran. They blew up a petrostate level of petroleum infrastructure to the tune of $58B in damages of specialized engineering, about 15% of the country's total GDP. If recreating that in a quarter was possible, everyone with a drop of oil under their toes would do it.
Iran infrastructure is a non-issue, they have been heavily sanctioned for years. The issue with Iran is they are stopping everybody else in the region from exporting oil.
There is a global market for energy, a country X that would have bought from Iran but couldn't because of refinery damage has to buy it from someone else, pushing up the price at the margin for everyone.
That's the main issue, yes. But where was all that oil Iran was producing going before their infrastructure was destroyed? Are you claiming they only ever used it domestically and didn't export any of it? That seems unlikely.
While they have been under heavy sanctions, they have largely gotten around this, for example by trading with China (who have just said they will not abide by our "unilateral sanctions"). So their oil has still been going to service global needs, and its lack will still have an effect (as will the missing Russian oil products).
Oddly, since the Iranians (and Russians) have been selling their oil products at a discount, they were actually having the effect of holding down the price of petroleum prior to the war. No idea about how much in real terms, but...
> well, except oil executives and shareholders, I guess
They should be sued by governments, they can only make more money if they artificially increase their margin, if they simply passed the cost down to the consumers they shouldn't have record profits
Even if they didn't react to the natural demand/offer dynamic, American refineries are processing 30-40% more volume than before; that means US oil companies are making money that someone else was making before.
All the petrol processed in the world is consumed virtually on the spot, take down any production capacity anywhere and you'll create all kind of nasty side effects, now take down multiple major actors/transport roads and you get the current situation
That's not a source. And it also directly contradicts your assertion.
Petroleum products are refined and consumed near the point of use because they're not very shelf stable. Petrol is not shipped internationally in any significant quantity, neither is diesel for these reasons.
Take down any production capacity anywhere and you'll have shortages locally but crude oil supplies will divert to other refining capacity and fall in price.
It's still a global trade. Russia - India trade is directly affected, so that affects the supply of diesel out of India for those who normally buy from India. So they buy from somebody else. And so on down the line.
Diesel is shelf stable for 6-12 months, which is long enough to ship anywhere in the world.
It does. Oil export is down after repeated attacks on ports and export infrastructure both on Black and Baltic sea and attacks on tankers in Black (and even Mediterranean) sea. Russia exports less oil than it extracts and will start shutting down oil wells soon (may be doing this already).
Attacks on refineries also have impact on worlds petrol/diesel prices - one of biggest exporters turned into an importer at a time when there is world shortage of refining capacity and cracks spread is at or near all time high.
> It also limits their ability to fund the war.
It does but it also makes petrol and diesel more expensive around the world.
Iran can hit any pipeline on the peninsula if they have an accurate enough weapon (or get lucky) and it's not shot down. Their weapon ranges covers the entire Arabian Peninsula.
And/or ramp up production in other countries not dependent on the strait. One way or the other the market will eventually react to stabilize prices, it just takes a while (years) for the infrastructure necessary to do that to be built.
This situation reminds me of when I quit cigarettes because I got really sick, and then after a few months of recovery, I asked myself "Do I really want to start smoking again?"
No, I did not, so I did not.
I don't think we are going cold turkey, but Trump probably couldn't have given the green movement a better gift.
There has been a tendency for each of the last 4 presidents to do the opposite of their campaign slogans. GW Bush was "Compassionate conservatism" in 2000, and then he started 2 wars and radically expanded both the federal budget deficit and the federal government. In 2004 it was "A safer world and a more hopeful America", and look where we are now. Obama's 2008 slogans included "Change", "Hope", and "Yes we can", and then we got more of the same, proving that no we couldn't. His 2012 slogan was "Middle class first", and then 2012-2016 featured the evisceration of the middle class. Biden's 2020 slogans were "Build back better", "Restore the soul of the nation", and "Our best days still lie ahead", and none of those seem particularly descriptive of what actually happened 6 years later (though I'll grant that the Biden presidency was a normalcy reprieve after COVID and Jan 6).
Donald Trump's slogans were "Make America Great Again" and "Drill baby drill", and so of course he's been destroying America and kickstarting the green revolution through high oil prices.
It would be ironic if after decades of leaders talking climate crisis but not doing anything that caused global fossil fuel use to stop rising, president "Global Warming Scam" ends up getting it to fall through military incompetence.
This doesn't work as long as hostilities continue, since as we've seen so far, pipelines are extremely vulnerable to drone and cruise missile attack.
This years RAAM (Race Across America) winner finished in 8 days 19 hours, that's almost 350 miles per day.
Normal people no, but top ultra endurance cyclists can do 300 miles a day for two weeks straight. Especially if they are not self-supported and/or the course is not too hilly.
Trump supporters will tell you not to worry as he has a deal that almost done and oil will once again be cheap soon. (I didn't look up what he is saying, but he typically says things like that).
There are a number of pessimists that will tell you that things will never get better. Or maybe they get better for a short time but peak oil is here and things will get worse again soon.
My guess: Iran has every incentive to keep oil prices high in the US until after the election in November as the Democrats are yelling that much of high gas prices are caused by Trump attacking Iran; the higher fuel prices are the more likely it is Trump supporters in Congress lose their reelection bid and in turn hurt Trump. However I can't predict what happens after this - there are a lot of different force in the world (Both Iran and other countries) that are hurting and nobody know who will "blink" or "do something"; much less what what actions will be taken as a result.
If you can charge at home then trading in for an EV makes sense. Electric at home is vastly cheaper than fuel. If you can't charge at home, electric prices are all over, generally cheaper, but often not by enough to be worth the bother.
Better yet, demand your town put in good public transit. Good transit is expensive in the short run, but a good network means almost everybody in the city sells one car (most people live in a family situation with multiple cars so selling leaves one for whatever their objection is).
I think the future of gas prices looks ... interesting. In the short term we have the war jacking the price up, but in the medium term the increasing popularity of EVs pushes down demand and along with it prices. For a time. Until we start permanently turning off capacity, at which point prices start going back up again. I'm obviously no expert, but I envision the process of going ICE->EV being a series of waves, ebb & flow, as fuel prices react.
Unlike wars, EV adoption is a slow, steady, relatively predictable process. I don't think it'll have a very noticeable impact on gas prices the way short term crisis tend to.
The much more noticeable factor will be reducing how many people even care about gas prices in the first place.
>If you can charge at home then trading in for an EV makes sense. Electric at home is vastly cheaper than fuel. If you can't charge at home, electric prices are all over, generally cheaper, but often not by enough to be worth the bother.
Sadly, in CA, charging at home (minimum $0.26/kWh) isn't that much cheaper. Sure, maybe half the price of fueling up an efficient gas car, but not like 5x cheaper or anything..
I do have SUV ( Pathfinder ) for camping, skiing, kayaking, and other long trips. And 2 seats electric Smart for local commute - groceries, school drop off/pickup, gym visits etc. This is 95% of my family car use. The 90 miles charge is about $2, I do it 2 times a week.
Yes, this is CA
> Sadly, in CA, charging at home (minimum $0.26/kWh) isn't that much cheaper.
Just get some solar panels. We live on a sailboat and charge the electric outboard of our dinghy (kind of our "car", this is what we use to go to stores etc) with the surplus on sunny days.
Iran has continued to fire at tankers exiting the Strait of Hormuz under U.S. Navy escort, and apparently the U.S. can't afford to do anything about it.
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which is an alternative route used by the Saudis, is being closed by the Houthis. The Houthis are a close partner of Iran.
And the East-West pipeline, which was another alternative route owned by the Saudis, was blown up. They went for the pumping stations, so repairing it will take at least a month, and there is no way to repair it without it possibly being hit again anyway.
The oil infrastructure attacks by Ukraine are mainly targeting refineries, which would normally lower oil prices, since crude oil is an input to these refineries. These attacks are increasing diesel prices, though.
Iran is trying to break the world economy so the US packs up and leaves. Israel wants to keep the US there because the US is fighting one of their strongest enemies. Because Israel "is the US's greatest ally" (as many politicians have proclaimed over the years), they have a lot of sway as to what the US does. Not to mention, they seem to do whatever they can to derail any peace process.
Iran knows this, and therefore wants to make sure the US experiences enough pain to never come back and try to fight them again.
So, until the US is willing to stop, which rests heavily on when Israel is willing to stop, oil prices will remain high. (Or Iran folds, which they aren't going to do, they've been preparing for years and have seen how the US treated Venezuela - they stole all their oil, and left the regime intact)
Also, we've seen nothing yet, as the soft storage (the amount of oil that's normally floating through rhe global network) and the SPR's are all running dry. I would guess $150 oil in about a month.
What I find interesting is that while the actions of the US have been incredibly foolish and poorly thought through, Iran’s ability to make things hurt is very much a sword that cuts both ways.
There is now very strong incentive to develop alternatives that bypass what Iran can effect, which is exactly what’s happening. It will take a while for the infrastructure to come online, but as the months and eventually years go by, Iran will find its biggest lever for control rapidly diminishing even if the war was stopped now. Likewise, the move to EV’s will likely accelerate.
Americans have proven passive enough that I don’t expect political/military change unless the democrats pull their head out of their ass long enough to win the 2026 November elections and start impeaching and prosecuting the trump regime.
It will take _many_ years for alternatives to come online in the US and most other places. So much of the west is unable to execute on any kind of large project. In addition, in the US, the current administration has an irrational opposition to the main cost-effective alternatives.
What if I told you that manipulating the oil futures market was a foolproof way to make themselves filthy rich? Would you still think that opposition was irrational?
"There is now very strong incentive to develop alternatives that bypass what Iran can effect, which is exactly what’s happening. It will take a while for the infrastructure to come online, but as the months and eventually years go by, Iran will find its biggest lever for control rapidly diminishing even if the war was stopped now. Likewise, the move to EV’s will likely accelerate."
I am old enough to have lived through the oil shocks in New Zealand. It got so bad the government rolled out an alternative fuel system network of compressed natural gas. Many fuel stations had installed the tanks and pumps and many cars were converted to it. NZ has gas deposits enough to meet all its own demands.
As soon as the oil shock was over it was all ripped out and we all went back to oil.
It's not that poorly thought out if you look at it from the right perspective. Iran is the biggest enemy of Israel, and Iran has been significantly weakened. Israel was wiling to roll the dice on regime change in Iran as long as someone else was doing most of the fighting.
The U.S. was a power in decline before the Iran war, and the U.S. population was turning against Israel anyhow, so it made sense to get America to give it one last hurrah before they became useless to Israel.
This is the might our 20 trillion dollars spent on military has bought us.
A month or two ago they sent out an email asking common military members for ideas to deal with Iran. We've paid think tanks millions of dollars for plans like that. Guess they weren't worth anything in practice though.
All that money spent on plans and equipment and it sustains--what?--like 3 weeks of bombing Iranian children? (I mean, we did bomb a children's school on the first day, and nobody has been held accountable, so I'm still bitter about that. Let's be better please.)
The US has a lot of military hardware but questionable leadership just now. At least they've brought in testosterone tests so the military should look the part.
This is what you get when you hire a TV personality who cares more about soldiers looking masculine (and white) than anything else and launch an illegal war for no reason other than "those guys make me angry."
We are governed by people who think the very idea of expertise is dumb. A system of pure id and grievance. Like children playing war in the bath tub.
Israel this Israel that... Not a word about how the US is in this adventure to get a grip on oil and gas shipments to China. This is just another move in the bigger play of curtailing China’s influence.
Another’s benefit to the US is that many consumers of Arab oil now has to sign years long contracts to buy oil from the US.
But sure, it’s Israel.
Edit: see US’s recent moves in the straight of Malaka and Gibraltar.
Depends whether you expect this conflict to continue.
If these are the opening salvos of WW3 or even just a protracted regional Mideast war, yes you should get the EV. Experience in WW2 was that it became impossible to get petrol & diesel at any price. Supply lines would often be disrupted, and what petroleum products were available were usually allocated to the military.
If tensions die down after the midterms and eventually a peace accord or even stalemate is reached, you're looking at about 2-3 years of current prices. It'll take time to rebuild production in most Middle Eastern countries, many of which have had large oilfields, pipelines, and tanker loading facilities destroyed. You'll have to run the financials yourself of how much an EV costs, how much life you have left in your existing vehicle, and what local gas and electricity costs are, but I believe most EVs don't pencil out economically if it's just 2-3 years of current gas prices.
A third option is that everybody else (notably China and India) switches to EVs. If this happens gas will go down in price through reduced competition for it, and so you may be able to enjoy cheap gas for the remainder of your vehicle's lifetime. But note that in this scenario, you probably want to switch to an EV yourself, as eventually parts, repairs, and infrastructure for gas cars will become impossible to find.
Note that it is now outside of the control of the POTUS or U.S. military whether this conflict continues. They can prolong it, but they can't stop it. Recent aggression has been driven by Iran and its proxies, who are demonstrating that there is nothing the U.S. can do about it.
Well the US could put boots on the ground, launch nukes, do any number of crazy things. And sadly with the current administration it seems everything is on the table.
They don't really fix the problem, though. Problem is a lack of commercial activity in the region because people don't want to die. Turning the place into a literal warzone (again), launching nukes, or other crazy things does not instill confidence that you won't die sailing there.
This is one of those cases where the only winning move is not to play, and both belligerents have proven stupendously bad at not playing.
It's not outside their control. The US can stop the conflict by giving Iran what they want, but it would admit defeat and lose face, so it will continue.
I mean the EV is a good choice, but the bigger impact here is that everything gets more expensive due to the increase in costs of shipping, refining, producing, and heating/cooling...
Which often aren't as visible as paying $82.00 to fill up your ICE vehicle, but add up to much more of an impact.
I looked into this because that depletion.org site makes the situation look scary as hell at first glance, and I think the honest answer is basically: *yes, this is a legitimate problem, but no, I wouldn't read it as "gas is about to be rationed and stay insanely expensive for years."*
First, the site isn't bullshit. The underlying inventory problem it's tracking is very real. The IEA's September 11 report says global observed oil inventories have fallen *507 million barrels since February*, more than *10 million barrels/day of Gulf production was still shut in* during August, and global refinery throughput was 4.2 million b/d lower than a year earlier. That's pretty freaking ugly.
However, there is a pretty important distinction between the site's data and the scary probability numbers it puts on the scenarios. The site itself says the probabilities are assigned using judgment, and it specifically warns that the model "wasn't developed by an energy analyst." So I'd regard it as a really useful stress dashboard and not interpret "50% corridor lapse" as if the IEA just announced a 50% probability of catastrophe.
What I found more concerning is that some actual energy experts are now describing basically the same physical problem, just without going nearly as far on the probabilities.
Columbia's Center on Global Energy Policy put out a discussion today estimating the world is currently short roughly *5 million barrels/day* of crude and petroleum products relative to demand. Their point was that the reason this didn't immediately turn into an enormous price spike months ago is because we had buffers everywhere - excess oil, oil sitting on tankers, strategic reserve releases, spare refinery capacity in some places, etc. We're now burning through those buffers. At some point price has to do the work.
And I think "price has to do the work" is the key distinction here.
When economists talk about *rationing through price*, they don't mean somebody is handing you a little card allowing you eight gallons of gas this week. They mean gasoline goes to $5, $6, whatever it takes until enough people decide not to take the road trip, companies consolidate deliveries, airlines cut marginal routes, factories use less diesel, weaker economies consume less, etc.
That's much more likely than literal nationwide American gasoline rationing.
The other thing that surprised me is that *diesel and refined products actually look scarier than gasoline*. This isn't just a shortage of crude. Gulf refining capacity is also disrupted, Russian products are constrained, and refinery margins have gone nuts. So you can theoretically have crude available somewhere on Earth and still have a shortage of the exact petroleum product somebody needs in the exact place they need it. The IEA specifically says the global refining system is stretched extremely tight.
That said, the EIA is still nowhere close to forecasting "welcome to Mad Max."
Their September 9 forecast has Brent averaging *$74/barrel in 2027* and U.S. regular gasoline averaging *$3.35/gallon*, with Middle Eastern production gradually recovering and getting back near pre-conflict levels around Q2 2027.
There is a catch there, though. Their forecast was actually completed September 3, so some of the latest deterioration isn't in it. That's probably why I wouldn't just shrug and say the whole thing is temporary either. The newer IEA report is substantially uglier. Still, even the IEA forecasts an enormous *8 million b/d rebound in global production in 2027*.
So if you're literally asking:
> should I trade my car in for an EV because I might not be able to buy gasoline?
I wouldn't.
If you were already going to replace the car anyway, though, I think this absolutely moves the needle towards an EV, especially if you can charge at home.
You're basically buying yourself some insurance against this entire category of bullshit. Strait gets closed? Iran attacks tankers? Saudi pipeline gets blown up? Russia stops exporting diesel? Oil hits $150? You care considerably less.
Wood Mackenzie actually published something on September 11 making essentially that broader argument - that persistent oil-price volatility could accelerate EV adoption because the advantage isn't merely a lower average fuel cost. You're also removing most of your exposure to oil-market shocks.
But if you've already got a perfectly good paid-off gasoline car, dumping it and buying a brand-new $40,000 EV solely because you're scared gasoline will be rationed seems like exactly the kind of panic trade where you somehow manage to lose more money avoiding the crisis than the crisis would have cost you.
Basically, my read is:
*Expensive and unusually volatile gasoline for a while? Very plausible.*
*Diesel/refined-product shortages getting seriously nasty? More plausible than I realized.*
*Localized shortages if things get worse? Definitely possible.*
*America running gasoline ration books for years? I couldn't find any serious institution treating that as the expected outcome.*
The part of this I'd actually keep watching isn't even the price of oil by itself. It's whether Hormuz tanker traffic recovers, whether the Saudi bypass pipeline comes back, whether Gulf production starts returning, and most importantly whether inventories finally stop falling.
If those things start improving, this probably looks like a brutal but temporary energy shock.
If another few months go by and we're still draining hundreds of millions of barrels out of inventories while the physical routes remain screwed up, then I think the depletion.org people start looking considerably less alarmist.
If you can install a charger at home, get a plug in hybrid at a minimum (if you can afford it). The concept is old enough to support a used market but still pricey.
My mom won't get rid of her 2014 Leaf and won't go back to gas after a recent electric VW pickup. It's the only way to go (if you can afford it).
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I can slide in an 8’ board no problem when I’m too lazy to use the roof rack.
I haven’t upgraded the wheels or tires yet but the stock ones have had no problem going up and down the old logging and forest service roads of NW Oregon and SW Washington.
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Most people have a relatively short commute where the modest range of PHEV still allows them to mostly be on electric.
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This total cost of ownership calculator can be helpful:
<a href="https://afdc.energy.gov/calc/" rel="nofollow">https://afdc.energy.gov/calc/
Compared to a bmw i3, it’s price and (anecdotal) reliability are kind of comparable, but the annual cost is >2x more, and the carbon footprint is >4x.
(I had to pick a slightly older i3 to compare, since it’s discontinued).
As you point out, the rav4 is bigger. A lightning truck is bigger than the rav4 hybrid, but with lower purchase cost (2023, base for both). The lightning has higher per year costs though.
It’s pretty clearly game over for ICE/hybrids. Tariffs and bribed politicians can’t change the underlying price and performance advantage.
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That's not to say I wouldn't buy an electric car tomorrow if I had the option. My somewhat frequent long drives make gas slightly preferable but these days I'd much prefer electric.
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I can't see myself buying a new pure-ICE vehicle again right now. The mechanical advantages of the e-CVT are too nifty, the mileage benefits too great, for me to think of spending $40k on a car just to have more "fun horsepower".
Mazda/Toyota hybrids and the Ford Maverick are on my shortlist if the time comes for me to replace my paid-off car.
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Oddly, since the Iranians (and Russians) have been selling their oil products at a discount, they were actually having the effect of holding down the price of petroleum prior to the war. No idea about how much in real terms, but...
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The longer this stupid war continues, the worse off everyone will get (well, except oil executives and shareholders, I guess).
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They should be sued by governments, they can only make more money if they artificially increase their margin, if they simply passed the cost down to the consumers they shouldn't have record profits
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The Russians are losing refineries, not oil fields.
The Russian crude trade to countries like India pushes the price down globally, but limits Russian access to refined fuels and products.
It also limits their ability to fund the war.
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Petroleum products are refined and consumed near the point of use because they're not very shelf stable. Petrol is not shipped internationally in any significant quantity, neither is diesel for these reasons.
Take down any production capacity anywhere and you'll have shortages locally but crude oil supplies will divert to other refining capacity and fall in price.
Conversely take down crude oil supply...
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Diesel is shelf stable for 6-12 months, which is long enough to ship anywhere in the world.
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<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-extends-diesel-gasoline-export-bans-until-end-january-2027-2026-07-30/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-extends-diese...
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Attacks on refineries also have impact on worlds petrol/diesel prices - one of biggest exporters turned into an importer at a time when there is world shortage of refining capacity and cracks spread is at or near all time high.
> It also limits their ability to fund the war.
It does but it also makes petrol and diesel more expensive around the world.
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it is also cheaper than risking tankers
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No, I did not, so I did not.
I don't think we are going cold turkey, but Trump probably couldn't have given the green movement a better gift.
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Donald Trump's slogans were "Make America Great Again" and "Drill baby drill", and so of course he's been destroying America and kickstarting the green revolution through high oil prices.
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Normal people no, but top ultra endurance cyclists can do 300 miles a day for two weeks straight. Especially if they are not self-supported and/or the course is not too hilly.
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Trump supporters will tell you not to worry as he has a deal that almost done and oil will once again be cheap soon. (I didn't look up what he is saying, but he typically says things like that).
There are a number of pessimists that will tell you that things will never get better. Or maybe they get better for a short time but peak oil is here and things will get worse again soon.
My guess: Iran has every incentive to keep oil prices high in the US until after the election in November as the Democrats are yelling that much of high gas prices are caused by Trump attacking Iran; the higher fuel prices are the more likely it is Trump supporters in Congress lose their reelection bid and in turn hurt Trump. However I can't predict what happens after this - there are a lot of different force in the world (Both Iran and other countries) that are hurting and nobody know who will "blink" or "do something"; much less what what actions will be taken as a result.
If you can charge at home then trading in for an EV makes sense. Electric at home is vastly cheaper than fuel. If you can't charge at home, electric prices are all over, generally cheaper, but often not by enough to be worth the bother.
Better yet, demand your town put in good public transit. Good transit is expensive in the short run, but a good network means almost everybody in the city sells one car (most people live in a family situation with multiple cars so selling leaves one for whatever their objection is).
rootusrootus · · focus · HN ↗
Ajedi32 · · focus · HN ↗
The much more noticeable factor will be reducing how many people even care about gas prices in the first place.
hn_acc1 · · focus · HN ↗
Sadly, in CA, charging at home (minimum $0.26/kWh) isn't that much cheaper. Sure, maybe half the price of fueling up an efficient gas car, but not like 5x cheaper or anything..
alexsmirnov · · focus · HN ↗
bergie · · focus · HN ↗
Just get some solar panels. We live on a sailboat and charge the electric outboard of our dinghy (kind of our "car", this is what we use to go to stores etc) with the surplus on sunny days.
Solar panels are ridiculously cheap now.
bluGill · · focus · HN ↗
foo12bar · · focus · HN ↗
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which is an alternative route used by the Saudis, is being closed by the Houthis. The Houthis are a close partner of Iran.
And the East-West pipeline, which was another alternative route owned by the Saudis, was blown up. They went for the pumping stations, so repairing it will take at least a month, and there is no way to repair it without it possibly being hit again anyway.
The oil infrastructure attacks by Ukraine are mainly targeting refineries, which would normally lower oil prices, since crude oil is an input to these refineries. These attacks are increasing diesel prices, though.
Iran is trying to break the world economy so the US packs up and leaves. Israel wants to keep the US there because the US is fighting one of their strongest enemies. Because Israel "is the US's greatest ally" (as many politicians have proclaimed over the years), they have a lot of sway as to what the US does. Not to mention, they seem to do whatever they can to derail any peace process.
Iran knows this, and therefore wants to make sure the US experiences enough pain to never come back and try to fight them again.
So, until the US is willing to stop, which rests heavily on when Israel is willing to stop, oil prices will remain high. (Or Iran folds, which they aren't going to do, they've been preparing for years and have seen how the US treated Venezuela - they stole all their oil, and left the regime intact)
Also, we've seen nothing yet, as the soft storage (the amount of oil that's normally floating through rhe global network) and the SPR's are all running dry. I would guess $150 oil in about a month.
CoastalCoder · · focus · HN ↗
Modified3019 · · focus · HN ↗
There is now very strong incentive to develop alternatives that bypass what Iran can effect, which is exactly what’s happening. It will take a while for the infrastructure to come online, but as the months and eventually years go by, Iran will find its biggest lever for control rapidly diminishing even if the war was stopped now. Likewise, the move to EV’s will likely accelerate.
Americans have proven passive enough that I don’t expect political/military change unless the democrats pull their head out of their ass long enough to win the 2026 November elections and start impeaching and prosecuting the trump regime.
foobiekr · · focus · HN ↗
mysterydip · · focus · HN ↗
onlypassingthru · · focus · HN ↗
Buttons840 · · focus · HN ↗
edfsadfer · · focus · HN ↗
I am old enough to have lived through the oil shocks in New Zealand. It got so bad the government rolled out an alternative fuel system network of compressed natural gas. Many fuel stations had installed the tanks and pumps and many cars were converted to it. NZ has gas deposits enough to meet all its own demands.
As soon as the oil shock was over it was all ripped out and we all went back to oil.
palmotea · · focus · HN ↗
Because that worked so well last time.
Time for some new ideas.
throwaway920333 · · focus · HN ↗
The U.S. was a power in decline before the Iran war, and the U.S. population was turning against Israel anyhow, so it made sense to get America to give it one last hurrah before they became useless to Israel.
geoka9 · · focus · HN ↗
Why would they want to change the regime in Iran? If the goal is to hold on to power in Israel.
Buttons840 · · focus · HN ↗
A month or two ago they sent out an email asking common military members for ideas to deal with Iran. We've paid think tanks millions of dollars for plans like that. Guess they weren't worth anything in practice though.
All that money spent on plans and equipment and it sustains--what?--like 3 weeks of bombing Iranian children? (I mean, we did bomb a children's school on the first day, and nobody has been held accountable, so I'm still bitter about that. Let's be better please.)
phist_mcgee · · focus · HN ↗
Buttons840 · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/03/politics/us-military-iran-war-troops-punish" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/03/politics/us-military-iran-war...
tim333 · · focus · HN ↗
notpachet · · focus · HN ↗
That rhetorical horse left the allegorical barn a long time ago.
Gud · · focus · HN ↗
UncleMeat · · focus · HN ↗
We are governed by people who think the very idea of expertise is dumb. A system of pure id and grievance. Like children playing war in the bath tub.
palmotea · · focus · HN ↗
What if they deploy hordes of those cheap Ukrainian anti-drone interceptors, near each station?
fortzi · · focus · HN ↗
Another’s benefit to the US is that many consumers of Arab oil now has to sign years long contracts to buy oil from the US.
But sure, it’s Israel.
Edit: see US’s recent moves in the straight of Malaka and Gibraltar.
nostrademons · · focus · HN ↗
If these are the opening salvos of WW3 or even just a protracted regional Mideast war, yes you should get the EV. Experience in WW2 was that it became impossible to get petrol & diesel at any price. Supply lines would often be disrupted, and what petroleum products were available were usually allocated to the military.
If tensions die down after the midterms and eventually a peace accord or even stalemate is reached, you're looking at about 2-3 years of current prices. It'll take time to rebuild production in most Middle Eastern countries, many of which have had large oilfields, pipelines, and tanker loading facilities destroyed. You'll have to run the financials yourself of how much an EV costs, how much life you have left in your existing vehicle, and what local gas and electricity costs are, but I believe most EVs don't pencil out economically if it's just 2-3 years of current gas prices.
A third option is that everybody else (notably China and India) switches to EVs. If this happens gas will go down in price through reduced competition for it, and so you may be able to enjoy cheap gas for the remainder of your vehicle's lifetime. But note that in this scenario, you probably want to switch to an EV yourself, as eventually parts, repairs, and infrastructure for gas cars will become impossible to find.
Note that it is now outside of the control of the POTUS or U.S. military whether this conflict continues. They can prolong it, but they can't stop it. Recent aggression has been driven by Iran and its proxies, who are demonstrating that there is nothing the U.S. can do about it.
paulryanrogers · · focus · HN ↗
nostrademons · · focus · HN ↗
This is one of those cases where the only winning move is not to play, and both belligerents have proven stupendously bad at not playing.
geoka9 · · focus · HN ↗
It remains to be seen for Iran. I wouldn't be surprised if Iran gets out of this with the sanctions removed (to say the least).
tpm · · focus · HN ↗
peezd · · focus · HN ↗
Which often aren't as visible as paying $82.00 to fill up your ICE vehicle, but add up to much more of an impact.
jakderrida · · focus · HN ↗
First, the site isn't bullshit. The underlying inventory problem it's tracking is very real. The IEA's September 11 report says global observed oil inventories have fallen *507 million barrels since February*, more than *10 million barrels/day of Gulf production was still shut in* during August, and global refinery throughput was 4.2 million b/d lower than a year earlier. That's pretty freaking ugly.
However, there is a pretty important distinction between the site's data and the scary probability numbers it puts on the scenarios. The site itself says the probabilities are assigned using judgment, and it specifically warns that the model "wasn't developed by an energy analyst." So I'd regard it as a really useful stress dashboard and not interpret "50% corridor lapse" as if the IEA just announced a 50% probability of catastrophe.
What I found more concerning is that some actual energy experts are now describing basically the same physical problem, just without going nearly as far on the probabilities.
Columbia's Center on Global Energy Policy put out a discussion today estimating the world is currently short roughly *5 million barrels/day* of crude and petroleum products relative to demand. Their point was that the reason this didn't immediately turn into an enormous price spike months ago is because we had buffers everywhere - excess oil, oil sitting on tankers, strategic reserve releases, spare refinery capacity in some places, etc. We're now burning through those buffers. At some point price has to do the work.
And I think "price has to do the work" is the key distinction here.
When economists talk about *rationing through price*, they don't mean somebody is handing you a little card allowing you eight gallons of gas this week. They mean gasoline goes to $5, $6, whatever it takes until enough people decide not to take the road trip, companies consolidate deliveries, airlines cut marginal routes, factories use less diesel, weaker economies consume less, etc.
That's much more likely than literal nationwide American gasoline rationing.
The other thing that surprised me is that *diesel and refined products actually look scarier than gasoline*. This isn't just a shortage of crude. Gulf refining capacity is also disrupted, Russian products are constrained, and refinery margins have gone nuts. So you can theoretically have crude available somewhere on Earth and still have a shortage of the exact petroleum product somebody needs in the exact place they need it. The IEA specifically says the global refining system is stretched extremely tight.
That said, the EIA is still nowhere close to forecasting "welcome to Mad Max."
Their September 9 forecast has Brent averaging *$74/barrel in 2027* and U.S. regular gasoline averaging *$3.35/gallon*, with Middle Eastern production gradually recovering and getting back near pre-conflict levels around Q2 2027.
There is a catch there, though. Their forecast was actually completed September 3, so some of the latest deterioration isn't in it. That's probably why I wouldn't just shrug and say the whole thing is temporary either. The newer IEA report is substantially uglier. Still, even the IEA forecasts an enormous *8 million b/d rebound in global production in 2027*.
So if you're literally asking:
> should I trade my car in for an EV because I might not be able to buy gasoline?
I wouldn't.
If you were already going to replace the car anyway, though, I think this absolutely moves the needle towards an EV, especially if you can charge at home.
You're basically buying yourself some insurance against this entire category of bullshit. Strait gets closed? Iran attacks tankers? Saudi pipeline gets blown up? Russia stops exporting diesel? Oil hits $150? You care considerably less.
Wood Mackenzie actually published something on September 11 making essentially that broader argument - that persistent oil-price volatility could accelerate EV adoption because the advantage isn't merely a lower average fuel cost. You're also removing most of your exposure to oil-market shocks.
But if you've already got a perfectly good paid-off gasoline car, dumping it and buying a brand-new $40,000 EV solely because you're scared gasoline will be rationed seems like exactly the kind of panic trade where you somehow manage to lose more money avoiding the crisis than the crisis would have cost you.
Basically, my read is:
*Expensive and unusually volatile gasoline for a while? Very plausible.*
*Diesel/refined-product shortages getting seriously nasty? More plausible than I realized.*
*Localized shortages if things get worse? Definitely possible.*
*America running gasoline ration books for years? I couldn't find any serious institution treating that as the expected outcome.*
The part of this I'd actually keep watching isn't even the price of oil by itself. It's whether Hormuz tanker traffic recovers, whether the Saudi bypass pipeline comes back, whether Gulf production starts returning, and most importantly whether inventories finally stop falling.
If those things start improving, this probably looks like a brutal but temporary energy shock.
If another few months go by and we're still draining hundreds of millions of barrels out of inventories while the physical routes remain screwed up, then I think the depletion.org people start looking considerably less alarmist.
tumnus · · focus · HN ↗
selicos · · focus · HN ↗
My mom won't get rid of her 2014 Leaf and won't go back to gas after a recent electric VW pickup. It's the only way to go (if you can afford it).