The war with Iran made the electric car the cheapest to run. Buyers noticed, carmaker shares didn't

Short answer: the oil shock made the electric car the cheapest car to run in every EU country, and buyers moved fast. Petrol got a fifth more expensive and diesel a third; home electricity didn’t move. A battery-electric car charged at home now costs less than half as much per kilometre as a petrol one. In August, more than a quarter of new cars sold in the EU were electric. The companies that make those cars didn’t win on the stock market, though. Toyota and BYD, the biggest sellers of hybrids and electric cars, are both down by a fifth or more. Tariffs and a price war ate the gain.

The war's bill, per 100 km

Petrol now costs €13.04. Charging an EV at home costs €5.33, the same as before the war.

EU averages, week of October 5, 2026, for a typical small family car

At the pump

+23%petrol since the war began

Diesel

+35%

Petrol, 100 km

€13.04

At the plug

+1%household electricity

EV, 100 km

€5.33

Saved a year

€1,157

In showrooms

28%of new EU cars were electric in August

A year earlier

18%

Petrol + diesel

25%

On the stock market

−24%Toyota shares since the war began

BYD

−22%

Nikkei 225

+19%

1. Fuel rose, electricity didn’t

Source: European Commission Weekly Oil Bulletin; Eurostat (household electricity prices, HICP electricity). Consumption: petrol 6.5 L, diesel 5.5 L, hybrid 5.0 L, electric 18 kWh per 100 km.

US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, 2026, cut off most tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Pump prices followed crude. In the week before the war, a litre of petrol cost €1.64 on average in the EU; in the first week of October it cost €2.01. Diesel rose even more, from €1.59 to €2.15.

Household electricity barely moved: Eurostat’s price index for it is up about 1% since February. So the gap between the two ways of driving widened. On petrol, 100 km now costs €13. On electricity at home, about €5, the same as a year ago.

For an average EU driver covering 15,000 km a year, an electric car charged at home now saves about €1,150 a year against a petrol car. Before the war it was about €800. The saving is largest where fuel is dear and power is cheap, such as the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Greece and France, and smallest in Poland and Sweden, where petrol is cheap and electricity is not.

The number that matters most: an EV stays cheaper to run as long as you pay less than about €0.72 per kWh. Charging at home is far below that everywhere in the EU. Public fast chargers cost more than home power, so without a home charger the answer depends on where you charge. In that case a hybrid is the safe middle ground: it saves about €450 a year against a petrol car with no charging at all.

2. Buyers switched

Source: ACEA monthly new-car registration releases. July 2026 is derived from ACEA's year-to-date figures.

Europeans were already buying more electric cars before the war, so the share alone says little. The comparison with the same month a year earlier says more. In February 2026, the electric share was 3 points above February 2025. By August, the gap had grown to 10 points: 27.7% of new cars against 17.8%. Petrol and diesel cars fell to a quarter of the market, from more than a third.

3. The stock market didn’t follow

Source: Yahoo Finance daily closes (unadjusted). Markets: STOXX Europe 600, Nikkei 225, Hang Seng, S&P 500.

If drivers are switching to hybrids and electric cars, the companies that make them should be doing well. They aren’t. Since the last close before the war, Toyota shares are down almost a quarter while the Tokyo market rose by a fifth. BYD fell further than the Hong Kong market. Tesla fell while the S&P 500 rose. Stellantis, BMW and Volkswagen fell the most, by a third or more.

The market is not blind; it is pricing in other problems:

• Toyota, the best-known hybrid maker, saw its operating profit for the year to March 2026 fall by a fifth because of US tariffs, and it expects another drop this year, well below analysts’ forecasts. In May it said it was likely unable to absorb the new costs from the Middle East as well.
• BYD, which sells only electric cars and plug-in hybrids, saw its first-quarter profit fall 55%, the fourth quarterly drop in a row, because of a price war in China with Xiaomi, Geely and others.

My take: for a driver the maths is now clear. If you can charge at home, an electric car is the cheapest way to drive in Europe; if you can’t, a hybrid. For shareholders it is not that simple. Selling the right cars has not been enough, because tariffs and price wars took the gain. The oil shock is a clear win for drivers who switch, not yet for the companies that sell them the cars.

Tracker: Toyota, BYD and Tesla

• Toyota is best known for hybrids, the “safe middle ground” from section 1.
• BYD makes only electric cars and plug-in hybrids.
• Tesla is the best-known pure electric carmaker.

If buyers keep switching and the companies start to earn from it, Toyota and BYD should recover first. Each share price is frozen at the last close before this post, and the live price loads every time the page opens. Shares are in their home currency (yen, Hong Kong dollars and US dollars), and the comparison is in percent, so currencies do not distort it.

Toyota 7203.T

At publication

¥2,900.50

Oct 7, 2026 close

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BYD 1211.HK

At publication

HK$74.55

Oct 7, 2026 close

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Tesla TSLA

At publication

$370.68

Oct 8, 2026 close

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Source: Yahoo Finance daily closes. Live data refreshes on page load.

What the numbers leave out

• The price of the car. This study compares running costs only. Electric cars still cost more to buy in many segments, and depreciation, insurance and servicing differ.
• Where you charge. Home charging is the cheap case. Public and motorway fast chargers vary a lot by country and operator; the country table assumes home charging.
• Your own consumption. Real use depends on the car, the speed, the weather and the driving style. The defaults are real-world figures for a compact car, not official test values.
• Electricity at the newest date. Eurostat publishes household prices twice a year. Months after its latest figure are scaled with the EU consumer price index for electricity, which runs to August 2026.
• Cause and effect in sales. Electric cars were gaining share before the war, and new models and subsidies also matter. The year-on-year gap widened after February, but this study does not separate the fuel effect from the rest. In January 2026 the hybrid share jumped by about 5 points in one month, which looks like a change in how ACEA classifies cars, so the hybrid series is not used for conclusions.
• Cause and effect in shares. Share prices react to everything at once: tariffs, interest rates, China, profits. This study does not try to isolate the effect of fuel.

Data

Pump prices: week of October 5, 2026. Home electricity: Eurostat, first half of 2026; * second half of 2025 where the newer figure is not out yet. Savings for 15,000 km a year against a petrol car using 6.5 L per 100 km; the EV uses 18 kWh.

Download the cost of 100 km by country and the weekly EU series: cost-per-100km-by-country.csv, cost-per-100km-eu-weekly.csv. ACEA’s registration data is not included: its terms do not allow reproduction without consent.

Methodology

• Fuel prices: European Commission Weekly Oil Bulletin, price history with taxes for every EU country and the EU average (Euro-super 95 and diesel). Before the war: week of February 23, 2026. Now: week of October 5, 2026. Malta’s pump prices are fixed by the state and did not change.
• Electricity: Eurostat household electricity prices (nrg_pc_204), consumption band 2,500–4,999 kWh a year, all taxes and levies included, first half of 2026 (second half of 2025 for Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Latvia and Lithuania, where 2026 is not yet published). The weekly EU series starts from the EU price for the second half of 2025 and follows the Eurostat HICP for electricity (CP0451, EU27) month by month; the latest month (August 2026) is carried forward.
• Consumption: petrol 6.5 L, diesel 5.5 L, hybrid 5.0 L and electric 18 kWh per 100 km. The hybrid figure is the ADAC EcoTest result for the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports 1.8 Hybrid. The others are typical official figures for a compact car raised by the real-world gap measured by TNO for the Dutch government: about 15% for petrol, 10% for diesel and 25% for electric cars, charging losses included (TNO report 2025 R10815). “EV cheaper below” is the fuel cost of 100 km divided by the EV’s kWh per 100 km. Yearly figures use 15,000 km.
• New-car registrations: ACEA’s monthly press releases on new car registrations, EU totals by power source, January 2025 to August 2026. The July 2026 release was not available at ACEA’s usual address, so July is August’s year-to-date total minus June’s year-to-date total and August’s month. “Petrol and diesel” excludes hybrids and plug-ins.
• Share prices and indices: daily closes from Yahoo Finance via yfinance (unadjusted for dividends), each company on its home listing: Tokyo (7203), Hong Kong (1211), Frankfurt (VOW3, BMW), Milan (STLAM), Paris (RNO) and New York (TSLA, GM). Markets: STOXX Europe 600, Nikkei 225, Hang Seng and S&P 500. The base is the close on Friday, February 27, 2026, the last trading day before the strikes. War dates from Wikipedia’s article on the 2026 Iran war fuel crisis.
• Company results: Toyota’s results for the year to March 2026 and its outlook, as reported by Investing.com on May 8, 2026 (operating profit ¥3.78 trillion, down from ¥4.79 trillion; ¥3.0 trillion expected for the year to March 2027, against an analyst consensus of ¥4.61 trillion). BYD’s first quarter of 2026, as reported by Yahoo Finance on April 28, 2026 (net profit 4.08 billion yuan, down 55%).
• Tracker: prices at publication were saved with yfinance; live prices come from a small server function that queries Yahoo Finance when the page loads.
• Code: plain Python scripts (collect.py, analyze.py, snapshot_stocks.py).
• Trademarks: company and model names are trademarks of their respective owners. This site is independent and not affiliated with or sponsored by any company mentioned.