EV demand up 50% in France and Germany since Iran war

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

We went with a PHEV when I renewed our lease last month, specifically because gas prices