It is crunch time for electric vehicle makers. Russia’s attack on Ukraine has highlighted concerns about oil dependency and petrol prices just as manufacturers finally start to make good on their promises to deliver a wide range of greener cars.
In the past 10 days, Ford, Stellantis and Honda have all announced ambitious plans to speed up EV production, and Tesla finally won permission to open a new battery factory in Europe.
An extraordinary surge in oil prices to the highest levels in 14 years is reminding would-be car buyers of the financial advantages of going green. This could prove to be a global version of last autumn’s UK petrol shortages, which drove up online searches for electric cars and contributed to a tripling of EV’s share of new British car registrations in February, to nearly 18 per cent.