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The big winner from the Iran war thus far --- China.

Whether Israel is a real winner is yet to be determined.

There is no significant, strategic benefit to the USA despite spending at least $50 billion thus far --- not counting the cost of inflated fuel prices.

> Last week the German automotive trade body said restructuring in the industry and new investment was paying off, as every second electric car sold in Europe was now made in Germany.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/20/electric...

Well, we stopped hearing about the files. That's kinda a benefit to some people?
China has been winning since Trump took office second time. They are winning by doing... nothing :)
China is advancing for the last 25 years, Trump or no Trump.
The next administration needs to mandate the big American auto companies produce more EVs in more models in order to save them from the irrelevance they seemingly desire and arguably deserve.
You’re part of the problem, not the solution. There’s an entire political backlash against EVs because of mandates. The Trump Administration actually prevented California from having EV quotas.

Simply let in EVs from China and let American car companies go out of business.

There's a political backlash because Fox News and some Russian propaganda social media accounts told people to get angry and they did.

We have mandates against leaded fuel and excessively tinted windows and for child seats. We have mandates for airbags and seatbelts and bumper heights and crumple zones and turn signals.

EVs are better than gas cars in every way - less noise, less pollution, less dependency buying oil from the Middle East. Our policies, regulations and incentive structures should mirror that.

If they’re better, you don’t need mandates.
If this statement was generically true, nobody would smoke, nobody would play lotteries*, we'd all eat plenty of fruit and vegetables, everyone who was able to would exercise.

And some of the issues for EVs, like availability of chargers, go away by automatic action of the market when there's a good reason (e.g. government mandate for more EVs) to expect more demand for EVs.

* except on the occasions where the rollover boosted the expected value above the ticket price, but this would never happen if nobody ever played lotteries.

Sad to say, the best does not always win. There are countless examples in technology, products, politics, etc etc.
There's a political backlash against vaccines because of mandates too, and I think we shouldn't listen to them either.
No, there really isn’t.
I wonder what way of thinking these people exercise. They think electricity prices are somehow shielded from price going up?
ICE cars use energy from close to 100% oil. As long as your electrical grid is more diverse than that, you're already better off.
Exactly, electricity generation is already diversified, so it naturally gets somewhat shielded from shocks. Energy companies can burn wood if they get truly desperate, but I can only fill up my car with gasoline.
What? Where? In face that statement is not true pretty much everywhere. 50% of electricity in Hungary is nuclear. 80% in France. 50% coal in Poland, 30 % solar in Spain.
You should reread their post. You're proving their point.
In places where electricity generation is primarily nuclear, solar, hydro, wind, or geothermal? Yeah pretty much.

In most countries electric utilities have either regulated rates or are public-owned. They don't increase prices willy-nilly.

If you have an internet connected charger, which is standard in some countries, you can be decoupled from gas prices long before the gas gets phased out of the grid by charging when the grid is cheap and clean, even if gas is still being used for peakers. A simple timer will also often do the job, but you get even lower prices if you help the grid out by letting it dictate the exact time to start charging.
It's not about price; it's hedging against the very real risk of petrol rationing and shortages. An EV can charge from any source, and in Europe a lot of power is sourced from non-oil sources
If that's the case, probability of rationing/shortages for electricity may be even higher, unless you have your own generation.

There are several oil companies/sources, but for electricity you are at mercy of those who control grid. Again, unless you have your own generation.

> Again, unless you have your own generation.

Which is cheap compared to even cheap Chinese cars before the tariffs are added: https://www.kaufland.de/product/512021383/?search_value=pv+c...

Don't accuse people of not thinking before you've thought about it.

Charging an electric car at home is a lot cheaper than filling an ICE car with petrol. If the price of both doubles you save more money by switching to electric.

To make it really simple...

Before: Petrol car costs £10k to buy, plus 20p/mile (or whatever). Electric car costs £20k, plus 5p/mile.

After: Petrol car costs 40p/mile. Electric car costs 10p/mile.

That pushes the incentive towards electric.

Very few electricity grids (I think _none_ in Europe?) are particularly dependent on oil. Many European grids are quite _gas_ dependent, but gas prices are considerably less volatile than oil.
Here’s my way of thinking: charging overnight on a smart tariff means my cost per mile is a quarter of what it used to be. It could go up by 3x and I’d still save.
No. But there is more control than with petrol. An if you have more charger, could balance charginf during off-peak cheaper hours.

Can't do anything about petrol. Pay or gtfo.

i rarely (as a 12 year ev driver) see discussions mention you just get multiple times more distance per dollar, as a consumer, with an EV over ICE. (and i like both....it's just what i have measured having both)
I say this as someone who owns two EV cars, zero ICE cars, and loves everything about owning and driving EVs: it baffles me how quickly and noticeably consumers shift their preferences; I think I read something along the lines of „for the average German commuter, the petrol price spike means 6 euros plus per week in spending“ — and that is enough for so many people to go „okay screw it I’m switching to new technology for my planned purchase“?

I mean, great that it happens, but yeah, I‘m baffled.

It’s the stress around it, not the current price. That’s what people are replacing.

If I’m trying to plan for the future in a world where conflicts this destructive are permanently on the menu, I’m not going to ever buy an ICE car again. No one wants to be at the mercy of anyone else where possible and as someone who only owns ICE cars, it’s been very stressful few weeks.

I think you are on to something here. But it would mean that sentiment could change on a whim: a serious blackout somewhere in Europe that makes continent-wide headlines, and EV demand might crash.
Could be, but depends on the behaviour of PV.

Given the lack of blackouts around here, I've not bothered to investigate if home PV systems can still charge batteries, or if the inverter dependence on the grid for phase-locking the AC prevents that.

There's already been news stories about people powering their homes from their EV during blackouts, the oldest example I know of this from 2012 albeit with a hybrid and it was burning petrol: https://cleantechnica.com/2012/11/10/man-lights-house-with-t...

More recently, this: https://electrek.co/2026/03/13/yes-an-ev-really-can-power-yo...

The second part is the fact that domestic brands all came out with good EVs and many people are installing home solar which makes savings even more drastic.
I mean, realistically it's only going one direction.
These are just flashes in a pan. The material math for EVs is not viable.
I'll bet your math conveniently ignores the fact that the supply of petroleum is inherently limited and subject to disruption for political and other "non-material" reasons..
It's not a political statement, just basic physics & chemistry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEkIh2PcSYE
Your own YouTube link refutes your conclusion. in the first few sentences he states “The problem is not with EVs it’s with mandates”

EVs are fine,

yes they are still limited in some cases.

The mandates won't fix the fundamental physical & material problems so I'll repeat what I said. EVs are never going to work at the scale of ICEs, the numbers don't work out. Regardless of any political "incentives", there is only a finite amount of copper & only finitely many cars that can be made w/ that amount of copper which has to be extracted & processed using non-renewable resources.
Geez, Hillsdale College. Worldwide authority on all economics from the theological perspective. Congrats on picking information sources.
Do the math & then post your own video to explain why he's mistaken.
I don't think "material math" applies to things that are huge luxury/status symbol purchases. Otherwise we'd all be driving 2005 corollas.

And as status-symbol or identity statement, being anti-oil (or anti beholden on America, Russia, Iran, etc) seems like a pretty good one.

I am not making any political statements, it's all basic physics & material science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEkIh2PcSYE
I've watched plenty of youtube videos, I'm not gonna watch a 10 minute video from somebody I've never heard of and treat is as a good source. It's bad form to post that here multiple times instead of just citing whatever actual published sources.

Especially when EV vehicles are already working and taking over the market.

The man in the video has a history of questionable claims, for some fairly obvious reasons:

https://www.desmog.com/mark-p-mills/

> Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a Strategic Partner at Cottonwood Venture Partners, an investment firm focused on technological advancements in oil and gas production

There was no physics in that. It was 10 minutes of incoherent rambling.

How do people find this convincing? Is it a new fashion?

Global copper reserves are about 980 million tonnes, with 1.5 billion tonnes of identified resources and 2024 mine production of about 23 million tonnes.

A conventional car uses about 23 kg of copper and a battery-electric car about 83 kg, a difference of roughly 60 kg per vehicle.

With more than 17 million EVs sold in 2024, that implies about 1.4 million tonnes of copper embodied in those vehicles, or about 1.0 million tonnes more copper than comparable conventional cars would have used; applying the same assumptions to the current global passenger-car fleet implies roughly 120 million tonnes total or 87 million tonnes incremental copper for an all-BEV fleet.

Separately, the IEA says that under today’s policy settings and announced projects, copper faces an implied 30% mined-supply shortfall in 2035, while expanded recycling could reduce new mine needs for copper by about 35% by 2050.

USGS copper reserves / resources / mine production https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2025/mcs2025-copper.pdf

USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025 landing page https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/mcs2025

IEA Global EV Outlook 2025 – trends in electric car markets https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2025/trends-in...

IEA Global EV Outlook 2025 – full report page https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2025

IEA Global EV Outlook 2025 – PDF https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/7ea38b60-3033-42a6-...

IEA Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 – overview for copper shortfall / recycling https://www.iea.org/reports/global-critical-minerals-outlook...

IEA Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 – executive summary https://www.iea.org/reports/global-critical-minerals-outlook...

IEA Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 – PDF https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/ef5e9b70-3374-4caa-...

International Copper Association – copper intensity in electrification of transport https://internationalcopper.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2...