Electric car sales continue to rise around the globe, driven to newer heights by a wholly unnecessary oil conflict. Only a few backwards-thinking countries are resisting the rise… and one of those backwards-thinking countries is now seeing the light, but it’s for a unique reason.
Russia, as one of the world’s foremost oil nations, has never had any difficulty fueling its own vehicles. The abundance of gasoline has always led gas prices to be cheap in the country, which is one reason why electric cars have never taken off there.
Sure, there have been some EV sales, but for the largest and one of the most populous nations on Earth, the numbers have been quite low…until now.
The world is not in a normal time right now. Every country is dealing with spiking oil prices due to the whims of a senile former reality TV host, and lots of people are finally coming around to the idea that we should stop using this resource that literally everyone knows we should have stopped using decades ago.
Russia has been somewhat insulated from the effects of the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, primarily because it’s not really connected to global oil markets at the moment, related to another dumb war started by another doddering dictator: that is, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia first began its war of aggression by seizing Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. For some reason (read: Europe’s addiction to Russian fossil gas), everyone ignored that for 8 years, until Russia decided to invade eastern Ukraine in 2022, starting the current “phase” of the conflict which remains ongoing.
In the last 4 years of back-and-forth in that war, Ukraine has shown significant resilience and has innovated new war tactics, in particular being perhaps the first, or most clear, demonstration of systematic drone warfare.
Most recently, Ukraine has focused on a tactic of penetrating surprisingly deep into Russian airspace and blowing up oil refineries.
Due to Ukraine’s refinery strikes, Russia is finally having difficulty distributing oil, even within its own borders. Reportedly the country’s refining capacity is now only 70% of its domestic usage, with 24 out of the 33 biggest refineries in Russia having been struck.
There are reports of long lines at Russian gas stations, restrictions on fuel sales in several regions, and a ban on exports of gasoline from the country.
All of this has been enough that in the last 3 months of the year, EV sales have more than doubled in Russia as compared to the previous year. From June to August of 2026, 26,543 BEVs/PHEVs were sold in Russia, up 118% from 12,187 last year.
This is still a relatively small number – in the same period of time, around 400k total cars were sold in Russia. So we’re talking about a market share on the order of 6% for BEV and PHEV combined, which is still well below the worldwide average (~25% and growing). And, since it started as a small number, a large percentage increase is easier to achieve.
But it nevertheless makes the point that, even in a country that is so heavily committed to oil, electric cars can make inroads when the case becomes so plainly obvious to everyone. Now if only it took less than 24 massive burning refineries to open their eyes…
Read More: Electric vehicles will end oil wars – if we let them
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