In a TikTok video posted earlier this week, a Chihuahua claps its paws and dances to disco in front of a Tesla. “EV owners seeing gas prices go up, and not having to pay it,” the caption reads. In another, a clip of the comedian Zach Galifianakis laughing hysterically is superimposed over a gas-price sign. Across social media, Americans who drive electric vehicles can’t help but gloat. Who’s laughing now?Indeed, a car that doesn’t require gas sure does sound appealing right now. As the Iran crisis continues to choke the global supply of oil, gas prices are rising higher and higher. Americans are now paying an average of $3.63 a gallon at the pump, according to AAA—up from $2.94 just a month ago. Four bucks may be right around the corner, and elevated prices could linger for months. Already, ride-share drivers are getting pickier about the trips they accept and driving longer hours to offset the extra costs. Commuters are hunting for the best deals on services such as GasBuddy—which has seen its daily active users more than double in a week and a half. At one Chevron in downtown Los Angeles, people are stopping just to take photos of the electronic sign displaying a price of $8.38 per gallon.America could have entered this fiasco with a better hand. The current spike in gas prices—and whatever comes next—could have been much more manageable if more people had electric vehicles in their driveway. Yet relatively few Americans are currently in the position to recharge instead of refuel (regardless of whether they’re rubbing it in with Chihuahua memes). In the United States, sales of electric vehicles have risen considerably over the years, but adoption lags behind the rest of the world. Just under 8 percent of new cars sold last year in the U.S. were electric, compared with a fifth in Europe and a third in China. Now America is quite literally paying the price for sticking with gas.[Read: The American car industry can’t go on like this]Some of the skepticism toward EVs is understandable: They generally cost more than conventional cars, plus there’s that unfamiliar business of charging. A road trip in an EV requires more planning than simply stopping at the nearest gas station when the low-fuel light starts blinking. On top of that, low gas prices have made it easy for less climate-conscious buyers to adopt an attitude of… [TheTopNews] Read More.
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