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Soaring petrol prices caused by the Iran war have triggered a significant surge in consumer interest in electric vehicles across the UK, with manufacturers, dealerships and online marketplaces all reporting sharp rises in enquiries, test drives and used car sales – raising the question of whether the crisis could permanently accelerate Britain’s shift away from the combustion engine.
Matt Galvin, head of EV maker Polestar’s UK business, captured the mood with a phrase that has quickly caught on in the industry: “pump anxiety.” “The tide is turning on the volatile nature and over-reliance on fossil fuels and we are now starting to see ‘pump anxiety’ over the cost of petrol replacing ‘range anxiety’ about whether batteries will run out of power mid-journey,” he said, pointing to a notable rise in enquiries and test drives for Polestar vehicles.
The phrase resonates because it captures a genuine psychological shift. For years, the primary obstacle to EV adoption was the fear of being stranded with a flat battery far from a charger. Now, for a growing number of motorists, the fear of petrol prices spiralling beyond control is beginning to feel like the bigger problem.
What the numbers show
The data backing up that anecdotal picture is striking. According to online marketplace AutoTrader, advert views for new BYD models in the UK have risen 77% year on year, while searches for used BYD vehicles were up more than 375%. AutoTrader also recorded a 28% jump in overall EV enquiries compared to February, with used EVs – those up to five years old – now accounting for 19.5% of all used car enquiries in that age bracket, the highest share on record.
At Kia, which is shortly set to launch the EV2 – its cheapest and smallest electric model at under £25,000 – requests for test drives of its EVs have surged 84% since February 2025. Renault reported a 24% increase in EV model enquiries on its website since 28 February.
Gurjeet Grewal, chief executive of Octopus Electric Vehicles, which provides electric car leasing and finance, made the point bluntly: “The fact that I can say to you that we’re selling like four times more the number of used EVs than we were even six months ago I think is an indicator that it is real demand.”
The broader clean energy shift is even more striking. Octopus Energy reports that March has been its biggest-ever month for enquiries and sales, with solar sales jumping 54% month-on-month and heat pump sales climbing 51% in the first three weeks of March alone.
The pump price reality
The urgency behind the numbers is explained by what has happened at the forecourt. According to the RAC motoring organisation, petrol prices in the UK have climbed 13% since the end of February to £1.50 per litre – their highest level in nearly two years.
The RAC’s head of policy Simon Williams noted that diesel has risen by 31.5 pence per litre since 28 February, a 22% increase, and warned that diesel looks likely to breach the 180 pence-a-litre mark in the near future – at which point filling a family car’s tank would breach £100.
The cause is well understood: Iranian forces have been effectively blockading the Strait of Hormuz since the US-Israel strikes last month, restricting the flow of approximately 20% of the world’s seaborne oil supply. With no resolution in sight, wholesale energy markets have priced in the prospect of a prolonged disruption, and those prices are being passed directly to British drivers.
For motorists making purchasing decisions over the next few weeks, the contrast between a fixed electricity tariff and a petrol pump that could be charging 20 or 30 pence more per litre by summer is a powerful argument.
BYD’s moment – and its broader challenge
No manufacturer has moved more aggressively to capitalise on the mood than BYD, the Chinese EV giant that is now the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer. In a 30-second social media advertisement that has been widely shared, BYD Europe deployed the tagline “Fuel prices change, your plans don’t. Save money with a BYD.” The most-viewed models include its £47,015 Sealion 7 electric car and its £29,885 Sealion 5 plug-in hybrid.
The company has been pushing international expansion hard as it faces intensifying competition at home. Its chair Wang Chuanfu recently warned that price competition in the domestic Chinese EV market had reached “fever pitch,” and the group reported its first decline in annual profits in four years. Yet BYD’s shares have risen 17.5% since the Iran war began, reflecting investor confidence that the crisis will accelerate EV adoption globally. Wang has described the current moment as “a golden window period of opportunity for Chinese brands to go global.”
BYD has also signed up James Bond actor Daniel Craig to front the launch of its new Denza premium model in Europe – a clear signal that the company is moving upmarket and investing heavily in Western brand recognition.
The sustainability question
For the automotive industry, the bigger question is whether this surge represents a genuine, durable shift in consumer behaviour – or another spike that will fade when petrol prices stabilise. It has happened before.
Interest in EVs rose sharply in 2022 when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent energy prices soaring, and at the time there was similar optimism about a permanent acceleration in adoption. When wholesale gas prices fell back, so did some of the urgency.
According to research by Transport & Environment, in the current climate of high oil prices, driving a petrol car in the US is expected to cost around $162 per month compared to $76 for an EV – a financial argument that is hard to ignore if it persists.
Some car executives believe this time is different, pointing to a combination of factors that were not in place during previous price spikes: a far larger range of EV models available across different price points, improved battery range reducing the practical barriers to switching, and a much bigger used EV market providing accessible entry points for buyers who cannot afford new vehicles.
EV registrations in the UK are already trending up. February 2026 saw 90,100 total EV registrations, compared to 84,054 in the same month the previous year. Across Europe, sales of battery-powered models increased 15% year on year in the first two months of 2026, accounting for 19% of the EU’s new car market. In the UK, EVs already made up 22% of the new car market.
The industry tension
The surge in consumer interest comes at an awkward moment for carmakers, many of whom have been pulling back from their most ambitious electrification commitments. Ford, Honda, Stellantis and Porsche are among the manufacturers that have cancelled or delayed electric model launches and scaled back their transition timelines in response to softer-than-expected EV demand in 2024 and early 2025.
The Iran war may now force a rethink. The International Energy Agency’s executive director Fatih Birol has summed up the shift in incentives bluntly: “The main driver will not be climate change, the main driver will be energy security.”
If the Strait of Hormuz remains contested for months rather than weeks – and there is currently no clear diplomatic path to its reopening – the economic case for EVs could become compelling enough to drive sustained purchasing decisions regardless of political headwinds. The question is whether carmakers that have paused their EV investment will be positioned to meet the demand if and when it translates into large-scale buying.
In Norway, used EVs have already overtaken diesel models as the best-selling fuel type on the country’s largest used-car marketplace – a glimpse, perhaps, of where other markets could be heading if the energy crisis proves to be prolonged.
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