[PedroBatista]

I'm sorry to be that guy, but can we reintroduce a good dose of skepticism in our mental diets?

BYD was already selling a ton of cars when the oil prices were "low", of course there's some very creative accounting business moves you would expect from a Chinese company like BYD ( companies from other places have their own peculiarities too ).

Gas prices have been "sky high" for a week and people who are under financial stress just decided to ditch their cars and buy a brand new BYD? Are we children now? listening bedtime stories?

The concept of electric vehicle is technically superior to support the context and lifestyle a large majority of people have. It will "win" over time. There is no need to this bullshit simplistic feel-good articles.

Btw, the the market movements of people trying to get rid of their gas-guzzling SUVs when prices are high and trade them for a smaller and more economical car ( what they should have been doing in the first place.. ) already happened in the past many times, there is no news here. But these movements don't happen in a time span of a week or a couple weeks.

Sorry for the rant, but between AI's "Absolutely, you're entirely right!" and these bullshit articles.. I don't know.

To be clear: EV's will "win" and BYD has been selling a ton of cars because they are cheap and not terrible right out of the gate, also people don't have much disposable income.

[nico]

> Gas prices have been "sky high" for a week and people who are under financial stress just decided to ditch their cars and buy a brand new BYD? Are we children now? listening bedtime stories?

Have you actually seen the news and the situation? Gas prices will continue to rise and will stay high for at least 3-5 years, given the damaged infrastructure and how long it will take to rebuild. And that's if nothing else happens, so the situation could get a lot worse

This means 2 things: 1) it might be a better alternative to drive electric (depends on the numbers), and 2) if enough people start preferring EVs, prices for EVs might spike in the next 1-2 years. So buying now could be a good move depending on how things turn out

[fpoling]

Russia has been recovering from Ukrainian drone strikes again oil industries within months. And Ukraine inflicted much serious damage than Iran on Gulf states.

Drones with 100-150kg just not capable of inflicting hard to recover damage. What they are good is striking repeatedly. But judging by numbers Iran is not capable any longer of sustained stacks with hundreds of drones per day.

[nico]

Very interesting take. Not sure about the comparisons though: 1) Russia is a huge powerhouse that can do a lot on its own, I don't think Gulf states have the same capability to recover (at least that's what energy analysts are saying), 2) The US claimed they had completely maimed Iran in the first few days of the war, saying they had fully destroyed their navy and their missile launching capabilities. However, that clearly doesn't seem to be the case, and yesterday Iran even downed an F35, which until then was thought of as an almost impossible feat

I guess there's a lot up in the air right now, so I personally wouldn't bet on things getting better that quickly

[fpoling]

The same analysts predicted that it would take years for Russia to recover from the strikes. And Russia is no longer a powerhouse. They gets most of their equipment from China including the oil and gas industries.

As for Iran just count the number of drones it uses per day. They started from hundreds but now it is below 50.

[caminante]

> Have you actually seen the news and the situation?

Have you seen what's happened to wholesale power market prices? Have you seen that BYD's care sales in 2026 are down y/y?

Trusting anecdotal hype from BYD salesmen and a renewables blog isn't sensible.

[nico]

I wasn't talking about BYD in particular, nor referencing any numbers or quotes from the blog. I was responding to the above comment mocking/doubting people's decisions about EV purchases and showing how that contrasts with the current macro situation

Feel free to expand on the wholesale power market prices you are referring to though, not sure what your take is

[caminante]

> I wasn't talking about BYD in particular,

You quoted the parent's mention of BYD.

[mbgerring]

Wholesale power market prices are responding to shocks in the natural gas market from two wars that disrupted those supply chains. Solar and batteries have been and will continue to he the cheapest source of power, and globally, deployment is accelerating.

Not so much in the US, where our braindead political culture is intent on ignoring the obvious economic advantage of renewables, but definitely everywhere else in the world.

[caminante]

> Solar and batteries have been and will continue to he the cheapest source of power, and globally, deployment is accelerating.

I think storage is great and solar has a place, but this is not true unless you discard reliability and other features, which should be in the price. Solar plus storage for baseload power matching requires huge overbuilds. Even in the last few years, before the AI hype, installed utility scale renewables costs went up in the US. It's not just the hardware or national politics.

And if you can't get renewables interconnected in a couple years, then the install rate won't lower the carbon of the existing grid mix charging your car.

[mbgerring]

Why would you need to “discard reliability”? What do you think storage is for?

People have been saying that solar will never work for my entire life, and my entire career in clean energy, as I have watched it grow and grow and grow and grow.

You’re right that the interconnect queue is broken. Many, many people are working on this problem. Believing that an extremely tractable bureaucratic hurdle means that solar can’t work is madness.

[caminante]

No, solar reliability requires overbuild and storage to compare accurately on LCOE. Hybrid and overbuild = expensive, so not "cheap/er", which you said.

A lot of people have this misconception about solar even with awareness of the duck curve.

[bdcravens]

Very true. It's not like EV owners were feeling regret when gas hit the (mythical ) $2/gallon. Honestly, while it's fun to know I've "saved" $5k or so in gas costs during the 4 years I've owned my EV, if saving money was my only goal, I would have paid cash for a slightly used efficient four cylinder gas car.

[mikestew]

It's not like EV owners were feeling regret when gas hit the (mythical ) $2/gallon.

Gas could be free, and I'd still have no regrets. Because an EV is simply the better vehicle. And I think after over a decade of mass-produced EVs that maybe it's time to get away from "saves on gas" or "good for the environment", and maybe start marketing as "full every time you pull out of the garage", or something. Kind of like Mazda's old commercials for their Wankel engine cars: "piston engine goes 'boing', but the Mazda goes 'hmmmmm'".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHzeGEHWMjo

[macintux]

I'd be more interested in EVs if they didn't come with significant privacy and complexity trade-offs.

I don't want a door handle that can't open in an emergency. I don't want my vehicle constantly phoning home to the mothership (sadly I have to deal with that today, I really need to go disable that functionality). I certainly don't want a touchscreen through which all controls are routed.

I have a 20-year-old Jeep with significant mechanical problems; I should really convert it to a BEV.

[mikestew]

I'd be more interested in EVs if they didn't come with significant privacy and complexity trade-offs.

You're going to be really disappointed when you go to look at new ICE vehicles. This "EVs are a privacy nightmare!" trope needs to die, all cars do that now.

I don't want a door handle that can't open in an emergency.

Only one car manufacturer to my knowledge has that problem, just don't buy one of those. Again, nothing to do with electric cars.

I certainly don't want a touchscreen through which all controls are routed.

So far, other than the poorly-designed door handles of one manufacturer, nothing you've listed is unique to EVs. All you've done is describe "most new cars".

[macintux]

I understand modern vehicles are like that, hence my complaint about my current one.

But, by definition, most EVs are modern. That's not true of ICE vehicles, hence the tradeoffs.

[mikestew]

Fair enough, point taken.

[Tiktaalik]

> Gas prices have been "sky high" for a week and people who are under financial stress just decided to ditch their cars and buy a brand new BYD? Are we children now? listening bedtime stories?

The situation is something that makes people pause for a second.

Like everyone knows that EVs are the future, but when gas is fine, status quo fine, that future can be a fuzzy thing in the distance and it's really easy to shut off your brain, live in the present, and not really do any thinking and just go through the motions.

A sudden oil shock puts the issue of EVs on the front burner and gives people reason to think about things for a moment.

[ZeroGravitas]

> Gas prices have been "sky high" for a week and people who are under financial stress just decided to ditch their cars and buy a brand new BYD?

Or, America's "No War" candidate is starting wars in the middle east with no plan. It's co-belligerant is targeting oil production facilities, and the defender is responding by taking out refinery capacity in the area. Markets are predicting higher fuel costs for years.

That seems a reasonable time for a bump in EV sales interest.

[tencentshill]

Just be aware of journalists relating 2 unrelated things happening at the same time using "among" and "as" and discount the article accordingly. If you didn't pay money for the article, they will utilize click and engagement bait. Of course a week of increased oil prices hasn't changed any measurable purchasing patterns as the title implies.

[caminante]

This article is anecdotal with quotes from a BYD salesman about their product, and it doesn't mention that BYD's sales are down in Jan-Feb. 2026 (-36% y/y).

electrek.co is a renewables (biased) blog.

[Underphil]

At any one time I would assume there are thousands of people in the world who are replacing their existing vehicle right at this very moment for normal reasons.

[jancsika]

> I'm sorry to be that guy, but can we reintroduce a good dose of skepticism in our mental diets?

Of headlines? Always. Of the content of the article? Not without you providing counterevidence.

Speaking of the content:

* BYD has seen an uptick in demand for EVs

* "At one [BYD] dealership in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, demand is so high that it booked a month’s worth of orders in just the past two weeks"

* another dealership nearby had to hire more salespeople

* small uptick from Edmunds for people researching EVs in relevant period[1]

1: https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/electrified-vehicle-researc...

[rossjudson]

I see no reason to downvote this, so I upvote it.

I think you're missing something. This war is an inflection point. Consumer behavior is likely to change after it.

So yes, this is just a transient thing...but I think the effects will be permanent.