Before the U.S. and Israel launched their war in Iran, the national average for a gallon of gas was $2.94. One month later, gas is now averaging $3.98 a gallon—the largest one-month jump in U.S. gas prices in the last 30 years. Setting aside the horrors of the war itself—more than 1,000 Iranians have been killed, along with more than a dozen U.S. servicemembers—the spike in gas prices is doing something climate advocates have been trying to do for decades: making people seriously consider electric vehicles. Search traffic for electric vehicles was up 20 percent the week following the initial attack on Iran, according to Bloomberg News, with search interest doubling for Tesla Model-Y and Chevrolet Equinox cars. By mid-March, nearly one in four car shoppers were researching electric vehicles, according to Edmunds, a car shopping research platform. That’s the highest level of EV interest recorded so far this year.It's not hard to see why. At $4/gallon, the math on switching to an EV starts to look pretty compelling: The average American would spend nearly $2,000 a year on gas, compared to as little as $540 to charge an EV. And it’s never been cheaper to own an EV, especially as the used car market is now flooded with pre-owned zero-emissions vehicles. But interest and action are two very different things. Despite the surge in searches, new EV sales are actually down nearly 27 percent compared to this time last year—a hangover from the Trump administration's decision to repeal federal EV tax credits last fall. One analyst told the Boston Globe that gas would need to climb above $5 a gallon, and stay there, before most drivers seriously pull the trigger. And there's another reason people aren't making the switch, one that's harder to fix with policy: persistent misinformation. That's the issue we're tackling on this week's podcast. First, we debunk a couple of the most popular and persistent myths about electric vehicles—including one that half of all Americans currently believe. (ICYMI: feel free to revisit our two-part guide to EV misinformation, published back in 2024, for even more debunking).Then, we sit down with Dr. Christian Bretter, an environmental psychologist from the University of Queensland in Australia, who doesn't just study what people believe about EVs—he studies why they believe it, and what can actually be done to change their minds. The answer, it turns out, has less to do with facts and more to do with how you deliver them. Emily learned something about her own communication style that she did not love hearing. Listen, watch, or read the transcript below to find out what it was. The HEATED podcast is a new endeavor, and it only exists because of our community. If you have the means, becoming a paid subscriber ensures we can continue this work. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heated.world/subscribe
