EV Salesman of the Year

To be blunt, I have supported the war against Iran mostly because I think Iran has spent many years kidnapping and murdering Americans (and lots of other people) with far too little in terms of consequences. But also, I think this theocratic, American hating regime which has aligned itself with Russia and China really is a threat to the rest of the world if it ever gets nuclear weapons. Trump is right about that and has been right about it for a long time.

But there's no doubt that every war creates lots of unintended consequences and this one is no exception. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has been a boon for Russia which can get a lot more money for its grey market oil. The war is arguably keeping Putin's head above water at a moment when his own supplies of gasoline and diesel are so tight that he's had to cut off exports and start importing supplies from neighbors. Were it not for the war, Russia's economy would be circling the bowl even more than it already is.

Another surprising outcome is that the war appears to have really provided a boost to EV sales worldwide, something that most analysts were not expecting.

Electric car sales are on track to hit record highs this year, with 29 percent of all new cars purchased around the world expected to be either purely battery-powered models or plug-in hybrids, according to a recent report from the International Energy Agency. That’s a sharp increase from just 4 percent in 2020.

The boom in sales was somewhat unexpected. Some analysts had predicted a slower market for electric vehicles this year — until the U.S. war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz caused oil and gasoline prices to spike. That has led to a frenzy of electric car sales in many unexpected corners of the globe.

In South Africa, sales of electric cars more than quintupled in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year. In Laos, imports of battery-powered vehicles from China are soaring. And in countries as different as Australia, Colombia and South Korea, the E.V. share of total new car sales has nearly doubled since fighting in the Middle East began.

The rise of electric vehicles is upending international car markets. Total sales of traditional cars with internal combustion engines have been in a steady decline, and this year, they’re expected to reach their lowest level since the early 2000s.

There are really two notable exceptions to the trend: China and the United States. EVs continue to have a huge market share in China but the overall rate of car sales is down there a bit. In the United States, EV sales haven't fully recovered since Biden's $7,500 tax credit went away, though they are rebounding slowly.

However, there's a big and pretty obvious wrinkle to consider when it comes to the U.S. There's a reason EV sales aren't spiking here and it's not just about tax credits. In 2024, Joe Biden announced a 100 percent tariff on Chinese EVs designed to protect the U.S. market from a flood of cheap cars. President Trump continued that tariff and has tried to crack down on transshipment of Chinese EVs coming through Canada and Mexico.

All of that has been good for Tesla which, as of last month, had 55 percent of the U.S. EV market share. But Tesla's cars are more premium models. The company never has introduced a cheap EV, like a small hatchback, that could compete more directly with some of the cheaper Chinese cars. The point being, I think we might be seeing the same kind of surging sales here if it were possible to buy a brand new EV for the price of a base model Honda Civic (around $25,000). But because that's not an option here like it is elsewhere in the world, sales aren't booming. 

At least new EV sales aren't booming, but used EV sales, which are in that price range, have been booming.

Sales of used electric vehicles continued their surge in July, jumping 7.7 percent from June and 10.1 percent compared to last year, according to data Cox Automotive released today. New EVs, in contrast, saw only modest 3.2 percent month-over-month growth and were down 41.5 percent from 2025. 

“The used market is so hot,” Scott Case, CEO of Recurrent, a company that provides data about EVs, told Grist. Dealers he talks to say fuel costs are a key reason people are going electric, and gas prices climbed again in July due to the ongoing war with Iran. “The used EV market is pretty much uniquely the beneficiary of the war,” he said...

“There are so many used EVs available at a good price point,” Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive, told Grist. With a glut of these cars expected to come off lease in the next few years, the secondary market should remain abundant and teeming with deals. 

Anyway, my headline is meant to be tongue-in-cheek since I don't think Trump really cares at all about selling EVs. But there's some truth to it nonetheless. The war with Iran seems to have pushed more buyers toward EVs at a time when that wasn't expected to happen.

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