It seems one way Iran fights the US asymmetrically is by harming the Federal financial picture with endlessly higher rates + borrowing costs. If this keeps happening month-after-month, year-after-year, we're really going to feel the squeeze.
Treasury has already tried to reassure markets and failed
and I'm not sure how much they need to do to drive up costs. During Covid the economy has started showing signs that the incentives are wrong and Trump 2 showed you can just buy government favours and tilt the field to your advantage.
Even if they don't say that, it is the obvious thing to do. Elections are coming up in a few months. Already because of midterm elections the democrats were expected to gain seats (this is something you could predict the day after the 2024 elections before Trump took office again). The democrats are not so stupid as to not yell about gasoline prices in their advertisements - this is a big deal to a lot of people. Iran has a lot of power to affect gas prices (something they have long known) and so their best chance to harm Trump is to ensure the democrats win as many seats as possible.
The real question is what happens after the elections. There is a lot happening in Iran and nobody can figure out which factions really are gaining power (we know who is the public voice of power, but not if they have real power)
It’s a simple calculation though and not talked about enough. USA went to war in Iraq 25 years ago thanks to the oilmen in charge at that time. For all the political bluster about Iran and gas prices, $100 oil makes them hugely more profit than $60 oil. Of course producers and shareholders of American oil companies want that extra free money. They’re not pumping oil out of the ground and keeping it at a low price just to be benevolent to the American consumer.
It's more complex than that. US crude oil extraction companies don't want prices to climb too high as longer term that destroys demand and encourages customers to find alternatives. Something in the $75–80/bbl range for WTI crude is probably optimal to maximize long-term industry profits.
I think that is a contributor, but the root cause of the Iran war was Netanyahu goading a simple person into it. The US military and intelligence community knew the risk of this, told everyone not to do it, and they did it anyway.
(if one is some combination of unsophisticated, irrational, and vain, and in a position of power, they will eventually be exploited by someone more rational and sophisticated, imho)
That’s correct but it’s multimodal. It might not have been the reason for getting involved in the first place but it does now seem like a reason for something happening every time the oil price starts to drop again.
I don't even really understand Israel's game plan here. Iran took a lot of damage but now they control the strait, they have a lot of leverage. Hard to know how it's going to shake out, but how is Israel better off now?
Israel didn't really change their position much. Iran was already funding all their enemies.
I suspect (know way to know) Isreal would have been better off attacking Iran alone - they could have sent a message "back off - we can do more harm to you than you can do to us", but sending that message is hard. They tried to send a clearer bigger message, but the problem is the message getting through ended up being "this is the worst that you will do to us and we can endure". The reality is Iran knows the US and Israel won't invade, and so long as that option is off the table Iran can do anything it wants knowing things won't get worse.
Compare to how Bush handled Iraq - months of convincing the world to help him invade (not always successfully, but enough that many people were sending troops). If conditions were sent such that troops really were on the table I would expect Iran to back down (I give it about 60% odds, which means 40% an invasion happens!). Israel would have won in that case, but it wasn't handled like that (there are reasonable odds that the US would refuse the propaganda to invade if that was tried though which means Israel would be back to the previous status quo...).
You probably have to read that last paragraph a dozen times to understand it. I'm not the best writer and it is a complex subject.
They’ve massively expanded into Lebanon and Gaza, settlements are continuing to grow at an alarming pace, the Saudis have little choice but to get massively more involved in fighting Iran and their proxies, A less feckless US campaign could have eliminated or greatly weakened Iran’s nuclear program, Bibi’s mostly consolidated all power in Israel… it hasn’t worked out that poorly for Israel.
This was Israel’s last chance to strike on Iran using the US as the munition, because the next Congress and President wouldn’t and Netanyahu (76 years old as of this comment, close to end of male life expectancy) will only live or be in power for so long.
Very similar to Putin (73 years old, as of this comment) making his move against Ukraine when he did. Light cone of potential outcomes and path dependency.
“Old men pulling triggers out of ideology before they’re too weak to.” I argue that, in many ways, extended life expectancy has been a curse in this context. It has allowed unscrupulous people positions of power where great harm is incurred with limited repercussions (if any!), positions of power they would not be in if they had aged out sooner. You can only wait to vote them out, or wait for them to die if you cannot vote them out. Very unfortunate.
For now. They are well aware of the long picture. They know how long they can risk doing without maintenance, and will do it eventually. They are also well aware that EVs are coming and high fuel prices hurt them long term because people will switch and not come back.
Someone else suggested they see $85/bbl as the ideal price. I don't know if that is true, but it seems reasonable.
EV is committing irrespectively of what refineries are doing at this point. The latest Chinese models with a reasonable range are cheaper to manufacture than ICE cars. So I can see why refineries want to get as much money as possible now before the massive switch to EV.
This is a really complex optimization problem, but slowing EV adoption, which low gas prices help, is likely the better course for a few more years. Eventually just gouge the petrol users left is the most profit, but I don't think that has been reached yet.
>This was the desired effect though, as higher oil prices means more profit for US based oil producers. I'm sure that will trickle down any time now.
That's giving the Trump administration too much credit. Before the war there were pieces about how oil companies were doing worse under Trump than under Biden[1]. Of course, you could argue that the Iran war is Trump finally responding to oil companies, but given that it only started more than a year after he took power, it really makes you wonder whether Trump is bumbling along, or playing some 5d chess with the global oil market. On the flip side there's plenty of evidence that he doesn't want high oil prices, for instance lifting sanctions on Iranian and Russian oil.
I don’t know why anyone gives Trump credit for things like this. He (like all elected officials for the past few decades) is a figurehead and has been manipulated by careerists at every step, who themselves are beholden to the lobbyists that grease the wheels of government.
If oil starts ruining the financial picture on top of just the...global welfare of every living human picture, then maybe, just maybe people will actually give up their addiction.
Unfortunately it's not as black and white as that. The alternatives here in the UK are limited. It's basically ICE or electric.
We have a staggering number of people that live in apartments so charging is out of the question except at public charging points and the cheapest I've seen is £0.40/kWh. Most of the fast chargers are £0.92/kWh.
When I get my home charger fitted I'll be paying 6.9p/kWh between midnight and 6am but I have a driveway.
Not everyone can give up ICE cars. The logistics don't add up for many people plus the entire world runs on diesel - every truck, earth-mover, factory etc. relies on diesel in some fashion.
Huh, how does having options of ICE or EV cars mean high oil prices won't mean people try to use less oil?
If gas prices go up, expensive public EV chargers will be more appealing. I hope you get better infrastructure re: charging soon; here in California (not known for low energy prices nor for infrastructure-building capacity) most fast chargers are between US$0.50 and US$0.70 (£0.37-£0.52) per kWh, so it is definitely possible. (You also need non-fossil-based electricity generation to truly decouple from oil/gas prices.)
I share your worries about industry, though — although trucks, earth-movers, etc could theoretically run on batteries or hydrogen or something, industrial processes using petroleum and natural gas may be around for a lot longer.
Individuals can do some things but not everything. I live in a place without reasonable public transportation but I've replaced 90% or more of my car trips with cycling, including for large grocery runs. I'll acknowledge not everyone is as fit as I am or as willing to put up with bad weather (I ride in snow for months out of the year).
Pivoting agriculture from feed grains supporting the livestock industry to crops that humans directly consume would also improve the fuel consumption picture, but people are reluctant to reduce or eliminate meats from their diets.
> Pivoting agriculture from feed grains supporting the livestock industry to crops that humans directly consume would also improve the fuel consumption picture, but people are reluctant to reduce or eliminate meats from their diets.
Cattle herds are at 75-90 year lows, and roughly half of US beef consumption is driven by 12% of folks. They'll be fine with alternate protein sources. US cattle trajectories are locked in due to climate change induced supply cost inflation, meat packing consolidation, and cattle ranchers aging out (there are more farmers over 75 than under 35, average age of a cattle rancher is 58).
If one cannot afford a new EV, they should buy used. If one would like a new EV and can afford one, they should do so. EVs will not maintain their value because of the rate of technology innovation and deployment rates. The value is in TCO savings from using electricity for fuel over fossil fuels.
If one can make due with an ebike instead of an EV, certainly, that is of course an option that should be considered.
Problem with buying used is EVs you are limited to what is for sale now. Search EV market share by year in your favorite search engine, then do your own analysis: if you are buying a used car more than 90% of your options are not EV (even if we include PHEV)
If you drive a car then EVs should be your first choice, and they should be worth a premium over other types. However in the end used car buyers are limited to what is for sale now.
Last I checked, depending on one’s needs, used EVs are among some of the best values in the US used car market. Their prices are closer to what prices on used gas cars would’ve been had the market not been turned on its head during the pandemic.
The main caveat is that available models are heavily weighted towards “compact” (RAV4 sized) SUVs and larger. There aren’t many little Prius/Fit/Soul type town car models around which is a bit paradoxical with that being the use case that EVs have been well suited to for the longest time.
The problem is the "gas station mindset", where people are only able to view EV ownership through the lens of "drive till empty then fill up".
A 250 mile round trip to the beach becomes unthinkable because the gas station mindset dictates that they will have to spend 30-40 minutes at a charger on the way home.
The reality of course, is that you charge on L2 while at the beach, or stop for a quick 5-10 minute buffer charge to get you home.
So everyone is all "I need 350-400 mile range or its totally a non-starter". Its just all around confused thinking.
It’s almost maybe not a bad idea to take a ~30m breather on a 250m trip. Good opportunity to grab a bite to eat too since many chargers are situated near rest stops and restaurants.
It’s not just old EVs that are cheap, it’s 1-3 year old low mileage off lease models too.
My numbers may a bit out of date but for example, depending on the trim and mileage, the Nissan Ariya can be be had at between $15-$25k (with MSRP being over double that) and they only started selling those in 2023. Ariya’s thus far have shown great battery degradation too, with high mileage drivers (Uber etc) reporting 99% capacity.
And that’s just one model. There’s also Kia EV6/EV9, Hyundai Ioniq 5/9, VW ID.4, Mustang Mach-E, and several others of a similar vintage that are similarly deeply discounted despite low miles.
It’s thanks to the many lease deals, tax rebates, etc bringing down their market value.
This year I bought a 5 year old compact electric SUV with 94% reported battery health (gets about 20 miles under its EPA-estimated range) for under $12k.
Your point is false. Batteries last long enough, there is no massive degradation at 10 years, and you have no data to prove that assertion. Whether you believe it or not, heh, that's up to you, believe what you want. Facts are facts.
> Industry experts think newfound knowledge of battery durability is a game-changer for consumer confidence in EVs
> Richard Symons recently took his five-year-old Tesla Model 3 on a 260-mile road trip across England without having to stop for a charge.
> A new electric vehicle could make the trip no-problem. But Symons’s car—which he has affectionately nicknamed “Miles”—has logged 247,000 miles and is still up for frequent long-distance drives. “They are proving themselves to be exceptionally reliable,” Symons said.
> After five years on the road, the average EV will still be able to drive up to 95% of its original range, according to Recurrent, a data-science company that provides a battery-monitoring tool for EVs—better than many in the auto industry expected.
> When early EVs hit the market, buyers’ concerns were well-founded. Roughly one in 12 EVs built from 2011 to 2016 have had to have battery replacements. But new data shows that more modern EVs are doing better so far. Among EVs built from 2022 on, 0.3% have had battery replacements, according to a 2025 study from Recurrent.
(my 2018 Model S with ~150k miles on it has ~7-8% degradation after 8 years of aggressive use, the majority of charing done at fast DC Superchargers across the US)
I really wish Honda would release the CRV plug-in hybrid in the states. But all we get is some weird hydrogen monstrosity. China has all electric vehicles with gas generators to charge the battery. That would make this work for my scenarios too.
I just checked 2015 diesel vehicles on my local craigslist (I refuse to use facebook, though I know that is where most cars are these days). A bunch of trucks for $15k-30k, and a few VWs for $15k. So then I search for electric cars from $10k-$15k and found nothing at all! YMMV in your local areas, but you will likely find the same: in the price range of a 11 year old diesel you will find nothing: EVs were still rare niches 11 years ago.
I did find a few eGolfs and leafs for $5k-8k, but in my experience if a car is that cheap there is a reason for that, so I assume they are unacceptable. There is a chance OP has a diesel truck because he needs a truck which in turn means they wouldn't work even new (the F150 lightning perhaps would)
I did find a few eGolfs and leafs for $5k-8k, but in my experience if a car is that cheap there is a reason for that
The reason is: no one wants them. Three years ago we sold an OG Leaf my spouse’s coworker for $3500. Battery was about 80%, but otherwise the car was flawless. All the buyer needed was an around-town car, and the old Leaf fit the bill. Leafs didn’t go very far on a charge, ergo they won’t have a whole lot of miles in them, and they were otherwise reliable. If it’s all you need, I’d recommend one for cheap.
In what way is it not worth it? I'm genuinely curious.
I used to be dead-set-against electric cars but I just bought one and am loving it. The maths is staggering. It's secondhand though as I don't believe new ones are worth it.
You can't find an equivalent for the same price. OP has an 11 year old car that apparently works fine. To get a EV means he needs to spend thousands (or settle for one that is a lot cheaper for a reason) more. We don't know how much OP drives, but in generally I'd expect several years before the savings from the EV are more than the upfront costs.
Now if OP's car is worn out and needs replacing anyway the economics are different.
blu nailed it, but to reiterate, if you already have a working car then the cost to to swap to an EV is not worth it. I have done the math with my current car and even with a downgrade it’s not worth it.
I don't get your point. The planet will not realistically run out of either. The water price goes up, then soler + desal becomes more cost effective, then people get to use the material that covers 75% of the planet's surface a bit more. Similarly, when oil gets more limited the price goes up and the planet gets to keep its oil while people stop being able to afford burning more of it. Or perhaps this was exactly your point.
Refinery capacity is the bottleneck, there are only ~420 of them that remain [1] globally. We won't run out of oil, we will run out of refineries as they slowly close over the next 10-15 years. No new ones will be built, out of stranded asset risk. The more painful oil is now, the faster permanent changes occur to destroy the future demand curve [2] [3]. An EV deployed today will last long into the future, while ICE combustion sales continue to decline.
China has destroyed oil import demand the equivalent of annual UK oil imports in the last six months, for example. Push those oil and diesel prices up, hold them up as long as possible. Several countries have banned internal combustion vehicle imports to push the needle on the EV trajectory (Ethiopia, Laos) because they are fossil fuel poor. Global EV sales have spiked, and already exceed 25% of total annual vehicles sales (~90M units/year) [4] [5]. We're just discussing how long until we reach tipping points that further accelerate the transition.
How much fossil supply chain infra must be impaired to further move the needle? Hard to say, excited to find out. Electrify or get wrecked. To not to is a choice.
(as of this comment, China has enough EV manufacturing capacity to satisfy global demand; they are currently export constrained and cannot ship fast enough to meet demand)
Lately I've been making a conscious effort to flip my coordinate system around on inflation.
Instead of tracking cost increases of fuel, I try to conceptualize prices for all things in equivalent fuel or metered energy.
The fed can overlook energy and food in their "preferred metric of inflation", but that's 90% of what I care about as an individual. Very interesting to track your purchasing power in MWh
I’ve been doing something similar, tracking the price of technology purchase in terms of AAPL shares for 20+ years. It’s amazing how much cheaper computers have gotten!
Remember, the grandiose leader said the Iran special military operation will be over after the midterm elections. Unfortunately he meant the 2034 midterms.
The market values Diesel more. Diesel fuel has more energy per gallon, and a diesel engine as run in the real world is more energy efficient (in a lab gasoline is slightly more energy efficient, but the difference is slight and the conditions needed to make this happen are rare in the real world). Thus those who use a lot of fuel - things like freight and earth moving normally use diesel engines. These are also applications that have less elasticity, so when price goes up they don't use less. (when gas prices go up a few people drive less - or buy more fuel efficient cars, people running diesel already are buying the best fuel efficiency they can for their needs).
While diesel is less refined, the difference isn't much. These days both are heavily refined products, and the cost to refine gasoline isn't very much per gallon.
The real answer: supply/demand is the key factor in the price you pay. Cost to create/build a product generally sets a floor on the price you pay: a business that isn't making money will stop making the product (loss leaders exist, but not a factor here).
That sounds like a great theory but is not consistent with the observation that until not too long ago, diesel used to be cheaper. How do you explain that?
That's the problem with hindsight theories, especially if only using a limit horizon into the past.
Supply demand. As refineries got better at cracking fuel they made more and more gasoline since that is what the market wanted. However to change the mix they need to make a long term bet on it isn't worth it to build/rebuild their expensive refinery to produce a different mix. A refinery only has a small amount of ability to change what comes out, they can't make more diesel without a major rebuild and that isn't worth it.
Ultra-low-sulfur diesel became mandated in 2006 as the only type that was legal to sell for road use. That requires extra refining to remove the naturally-occuring sulfur from the fuel which is why the cost went up.
I have only a passing interest in this but, basically, different oil fields have different percentages of different weight hydrocarbons. The oil can be refined with catalytic cracking to make more gas / kerosene / whatever. As I understand it, we're using "lighter" oil and we're focusing on making gas, so the percentage diesel in the crack spread is lower. So, there's less diesel coming out of the refineries.
This started, I believe when fracking became a major thing (the late 2000s), because shale oils tends to have less heavy hydrocarbons then the old wells.
Diesel increased in price because truck drivers couldn't afford not to drive their truck. The cartel as well as the distributors are extracting all the value they can at every step. That is why diesel has increased so much.
If the demand for other fuels increases, the cost of diesel can be indirectly affected.
Jet fuel and diesel fuel come from similar parts of the barrel. Refineries can largely choose what kind of fuel they produce for a given unit of input. One barrel doesn't always split into the same fractions. There is configuration involved.
Supply and demand? Over here in Germany, Diesel was cheaper than (any kind of) gasoline for a long time, but that has also changed recently (Gemini says since Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022, so another thing to blame Putin for), now it's about 5% more expensive...
I thought I heard once it was because diesel might be more polluting than regular gas and thus has extra taxes on it? I could be entirely wrong though.
Not in the US, but I believe there are some countries that have tried that. For a while Europe (in general - but individual countries had different policies!) had less tax on diesel because it was more energy efficient, then they realized it was more polluting (less CO2, but more NOx...) and started encouraging gasoline which they decided was overall better.
In the US diesel taxes are often different from gasoline, but polluting is generally not a factor.
Its weird that american people never protest anything in big masses, or at least its very rare and almost never happens for core livelihood issues (wars, cost of living, corrupt politics...).
It's so different compared to Europe, and I was always wondering why. Is it better propaganda machine or?
Lockheed would still agree that it's good for them - replacing all those $4 million Patriot rockets expended in the Middle East to shoot down Shahed drones that are one or two orders of magnitude cheaper is going to fill their order books for years to come...
Only for a short time, everybody knows about cheap drones and they are ordering cheap drones (likely from Ukraine where they are field tested to work) to shoot down drones. If the next round is in a few years patriots will only be used on much more expensive ballistic missiles.
That said, the patriot is a lot cheaper replace than the things it was defending so it was a good investment even if expensive.
New (Russian) versions of Shaheds are jet propelled (much faster), have high-quality remote control, and as some claim, AI-based computer vision. So old interceptor drones are not working anymore. And the country can manufacture them at much higher rate than the other country can manufacture patriots.
The new jet powered Shaheds are more expensive as well. And Ukraine has already having good success in shooting them down without patriots (which they are very lacking in) - these are new drones that they just designed for the task. These new interceptors are more expensive than the old ones, but still cheaper than patriots by a lot.
We know Ukraine is working on a not a patriot interceptor that can do ballistic missiles, but so far there is no word on progress. (this seems to be intentional - they are not saying why but experts have some good guesses)
The smart ones properly realized that their home is no longer in the republican party. The others were swept up in culture war because... What other adults do in their lives needs immediate government intervention from the party of small government.
And because driving is slower and less convenient than public transit there. Seriously in Berlin, Paris or London I would prefer the public transit options in nearly all of my trips.
A lot of the “savings” in US get eaten up through poor economy, poor driving strategy and dependence on traffic lights + stop signs instead of roundabouts + “traffic from the left/right gets priority” yield-by-default junctions.
Diesel at the local garage I passed at lunchtime is £1.89 (57% more). The web [0] suggests that is more expensive than anywhere in europe other than France and Denmark for some reason.
So nowhere near "half as cheap". Throw in poor American average mileage and I suspect the price-per-mile is quite similar.
Diesel engines in the US are used for things where they do count fuel costs. (there are a few diesel cars/SUVs, but they are a tiny minority). In short for most diesel users the efficiency is very similar between US and Europe.
Israel has caused more damage the the US and entire world than any other country. They blackmailed our politicians into this war and we continue to suffer for their bloodlust.
>strategic oil reserve is about to experience permanent catastrophic damage from being drained too low
Apparently salt domes have a life span, you pump water in to remove oil. The water wears at the domes and removes more salt creating a larger cavern. It's not that we pumped out so much oil lately, it's because we were pumping out little bits over the last 5 decades constantly wearing at the domes. They were created at the time to only be used in a catastrophic situation, not when ever you want to control the price of oil......
Either way, you are correct in that their life has come to an end, we will require more expensive above ground storage going forward or we can electrify.
What is it "inflation adjusted" or is that cyclical because inflation itself measures/is a measure of the cost of diesel (which bleeds into the cost of goods and services)?
Diesel was over $4/gallon in 2005. Please run inflation against that, not last years prices. (I remember 2005 prices I'm not old enough to remember diesel prices in the 1970s, but that would be an interesting place to run inflation from as well)
The Ukraine angle is another cheap shot by CBS (state sponsored news). Prices are rising because of Trumps adventurism in the the ME and now that the Houthies will likely control the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, world markets are reacting.
There is nothing stopping US refineries from producing more diesel, you can use both sweet and sour, this is speculators squeezing the markets.
What a great time it should be to electrify heavy transportation. If they can do it in mining and construction, why can't transportation...
Russia stopped exporting diesel due to Ukrainian strikes. That badly hurt Turkey and to lesser extent Brazil. And Brazil started to get diesel from US allowing US companies to make a lot of profit. So Ukrainian strikes clearly affect global prices.
But then it also makes Chinese EV including trucks extremely attractive replacement. So China making a profit as well.
A lot of the Ukraine strikes affect Russia only. Russia has changed to import a lot more, and exporting less (I do not know the balance - most refining countries both import and export fuel from different locations), but the vast majority of the oil refined in Russia was used in Russia and they are unable to replace it.
Ukraine strikes to impact the world price. However most of the impact is in Russia, elsewhere the effect is less. Iran is larger effect because the middle east as a more significant share of global oil. (both have an effect, but Iran is larger)
Russia hasn't exported products in over a month now. If Diesel prices hit $6 today, it's purely because 6 months after the US president started his war on Iran, Iranian forces in Yemen have routed the Saudis and cut off the second of two SA oil export routes, damaging a vital pipeline in the process, sending crude to $100 and beyond.
My question is not whether those who voted for Trump 2024 are going to come to their senses and sour on this incompetent, destructive, and corrupt con man. My question is how long their reality checks are going to last before they start leaning right back into the revanchist destructionist feel-good narratives that led us here in the first place. This senseless destruction would not have happened if they had merely listened to their fellow citizens rather than writing us all off as some caricatures of woke boosters as their media propagandists led them to. Was Trump 2024 a true enough instantiation of what they've been demanding that they can finally put their hopeless "lost cause" bullshit to bed? Or are its eminently predictable results only going to remain obvious long enough for another temporary reprieve?
And the other party was (among other faults) amazingly complacent as major landlords colluded at scale - via RealPage software - to send apartment rents skyrocketing.
If you look at the timeline, and the demographics of voters who lost enthusiasm for Biden between 2020 and 2024, it looks like a whole lotta the Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck decided to vote their pocketbooks.
Vs. back in '72, when Biden was just getting elected to the Senate, Pres. Nixon was a noisy anti-inflation zealot. (Not saying Nixon was sane, nor legal...) Since Nixon was re-elected with >60% of the popular vote - in spite of negatives like the Vietnam War - I'd say that the Dem's failure to follow a so-obvious winning reelection strategy was exactly what handed Trump the opportunity to make the decisions which you so strongly dislike.
Treasury has already tried to reassure markets and failed
Add to this other trade war nonsense...
The real question is what happens after the elections. There is a lot happening in Iran and nobody can figure out which factions really are gaining power (we know who is the public voice of power, but not if they have real power)
This was the desired effect though, as higher oil prices means more profit for US based oil producers. I'm sure that will trickle down any time now.
Honestly, I think you're giving far too much credit to the current US government.
(if one is some combination of unsophisticated, irrational, and vain, and in a position of power, they will eventually be exploited by someone more rational and sophisticated, imho)
I suspect (know way to know) Isreal would have been better off attacking Iran alone - they could have sent a message "back off - we can do more harm to you than you can do to us", but sending that message is hard. They tried to send a clearer bigger message, but the problem is the message getting through ended up being "this is the worst that you will do to us and we can endure". The reality is Iran knows the US and Israel won't invade, and so long as that option is off the table Iran can do anything it wants knowing things won't get worse.
Compare to how Bush handled Iraq - months of convincing the world to help him invade (not always successfully, but enough that many people were sending troops). If conditions were sent such that troops really were on the table I would expect Iran to back down (I give it about 60% odds, which means 40% an invasion happens!). Israel would have won in that case, but it wasn't handled like that (there are reasonable odds that the US would refuse the propaganda to invade if that was tried though which means Israel would be back to the previous status quo...).
You probably have to read that last paragraph a dozen times to understand it. I'm not the best writer and it is a complex subject.
Very similar to Putin (73 years old, as of this comment) making his move against Ukraine when he did. Light cone of potential outcomes and path dependency.
“Old men pulling triggers out of ideology before they’re too weak to.” I argue that, in many ways, extended life expectancy has been a curse in this context. It has allowed unscrupulous people positions of power where great harm is incurred with limited repercussions (if any!), positions of power they would not be in if they had aged out sooner. You can only wait to vote them out, or wait for them to die if you cannot vote them out. Very unfortunate.
Someone else suggested they see $85/bbl as the ideal price. I don't know if that is true, but it seems reasonable.
This is a really complex optimization problem, but slowing EV adoption, which low gas prices help, is likely the better course for a few more years. Eventually just gouge the petrol users left is the most profit, but I don't think that has been reached yet.
I am unsure its by design or just idiocy. (Probably a mix of both).
That's giving the Trump administration too much credit. Before the war there were pieces about how oil companies were doing worse under Trump than under Biden[1]. Of course, you could argue that the Iran war is Trump finally responding to oil companies, but given that it only started more than a year after he took power, it really makes you wonder whether Trump is bumbling along, or playing some 5d chess with the global oil market. On the flip side there's plenty of evidence that he doesn't want high oil prices, for instance lifting sanctions on Iranian and Russian oil.
[1] https://www.economist.com/business/2025/02/06/donald-trump-l...
We have a staggering number of people that live in apartments so charging is out of the question except at public charging points and the cheapest I've seen is £0.40/kWh. Most of the fast chargers are £0.92/kWh.
When I get my home charger fitted I'll be paying 6.9p/kWh between midnight and 6am but I have a driveway.
Not everyone can give up ICE cars. The logistics don't add up for many people plus the entire world runs on diesel - every truck, earth-mover, factory etc. relies on diesel in some fashion.
If gas prices go up, expensive public EV chargers will be more appealing. I hope you get better infrastructure re: charging soon; here in California (not known for low energy prices nor for infrastructure-building capacity) most fast chargers are between US$0.50 and US$0.70 (£0.37-£0.52) per kWh, so it is definitely possible. (You also need non-fossil-based electricity generation to truly decouple from oil/gas prices.)
I share your worries about industry, though — although trucks, earth-movers, etc could theoretically run on batteries or hydrogen or something, industrial processes using petroleum and natural gas may be around for a lot longer.
Pivoting agriculture from feed grains supporting the livestock industry to crops that humans directly consume would also improve the fuel consumption picture, but people are reluctant to reduce or eliminate meats from their diets.
Cattle herds are at 75-90 year lows, and roughly half of US beef consumption is driven by 12% of folks. They'll be fine with alternate protein sources. US cattle trajectories are locked in due to climate change induced supply cost inflation, meat packing consolidation, and cattle ranchers aging out (there are more farmers over 75 than under 35, average age of a cattle rancher is 58).
https://www.npr.org/2026/05/29/nx-s1-5719511/beef-cattle-her...
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/21/nx-s1-5719815/how-rising-beef...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/20/beef-usd...
It's lost 60% of its value, has only done 57k miles and has a battery state of health of 97.4%. I paid £22k.
I still maintain that new cars, especially new electric cars, are not worth the money but secondhand ones are a bargain now... relatively speaking.
The climate doesn't care what is and isn't worth the money.
If one can make due with an ebike instead of an EV, certainly, that is of course an option that should be considered.
The world’s 280 million electric bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars - https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-280-million-electric-... - November 16th, 2026
If you drive a car then EVs should be your first choice, and they should be worth a premium over other types. However in the end used car buyers are limited to what is for sale now.
The main caveat is that available models are heavily weighted towards “compact” (RAV4 sized) SUVs and larger. There aren’t many little Prius/Fit/Soul type town car models around which is a bit paradoxical with that being the use case that EVs have been well suited to for the longest time.
A 250 mile round trip to the beach becomes unthinkable because the gas station mindset dictates that they will have to spend 30-40 minutes at a charger on the way home.
The reality of course, is that you charge on L2 while at the beach, or stop for a quick 5-10 minute buffer charge to get you home.
So everyone is all "I need 350-400 mile range or its totally a non-starter". Its just all around confused thinking.
My numbers may a bit out of date but for example, depending on the trim and mileage, the Nissan Ariya can be be had at between $15-$25k (with MSRP being over double that) and they only started selling those in 2023. Ariya’s thus far have shown great battery degradation too, with high mileage drivers (Uber etc) reporting 99% capacity.
And that’s just one model. There’s also Kia EV6/EV9, Hyundai Ioniq 5/9, VW ID.4, Mustang Mach-E, and several others of a similar vintage that are similarly deeply discounted despite low miles.
It’s thanks to the many lease deals, tax rebates, etc bringing down their market value.
Ariya builds buffer in to mask early degradation.
All but one Ariya in my area are $20k+. A well specced is $30k.
The math does not work if you own a functioning car unless you are willing to substantially downgrade.
EV batteries last longer than drivers feared - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49613527 - September 2026 (3 comments)
Retired EV Batteries Scored a New Gig: Bolstering Texas’ Grid - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47143967 - February 2026 (0 comments)
Most EV batteries outlast their cars, real-world data shows - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47083580 - February 2026 (0 comments)
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Your second link. Texas takes batteries no longer suitable for car and makes grid.
Neither of those is a decade old car running on its original battery. And I also said degrade which we know is true.
What’s your point?
EV Batteries Are Defying Expectations After Hundreds of Thousands of Miles - https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/ev-batteries-are-defying-... | https://archive.today/2RFo3 - July 4th, 2026
> Industry experts think newfound knowledge of battery durability is a game-changer for consumer confidence in EVs
> Richard Symons recently took his five-year-old Tesla Model 3 on a 260-mile road trip across England without having to stop for a charge.
> A new electric vehicle could make the trip no-problem. But Symons’s car—which he has affectionately nicknamed “Miles”—has logged 247,000 miles and is still up for frequent long-distance drives. “They are proving themselves to be exceptionally reliable,” Symons said.
> After five years on the road, the average EV will still be able to drive up to 95% of its original range, according to Recurrent, a data-science company that provides a battery-monitoring tool for EVs—better than many in the auto industry expected.
> When early EVs hit the market, buyers’ concerns were well-founded. Roughly one in 12 EVs built from 2011 to 2016 have had to have battery replacements. But new data shows that more modern EVs are doing better so far. Among EVs built from 2022 on, 0.3% have had battery replacements, according to a 2025 study from Recurrent.
(my 2018 Model S with ~150k miles on it has ~7-8% degradation after 8 years of aggressive use, the majority of charing done at fast DC Superchargers across the US)
I did find a few eGolfs and leafs for $5k-8k, but in my experience if a car is that cheap there is a reason for that, so I assume they are unacceptable. There is a chance OP has a diesel truck because he needs a truck which in turn means they wouldn't work even new (the F150 lightning perhaps would)
The reason is: no one wants them. Three years ago we sold an OG Leaf my spouse’s coworker for $3500. Battery was about 80%, but otherwise the car was flawless. All the buyer needed was an around-town car, and the old Leaf fit the bill. Leafs didn’t go very far on a charge, ergo they won’t have a whole lot of miles in them, and they were otherwise reliable. If it’s all you need, I’d recommend one for cheap.
I used to be dead-set-against electric cars but I just bought one and am loving it. The maths is staggering. It's secondhand though as I don't believe new ones are worth it.
Now if OP's car is worn out and needs replacing anyway the economics are different.
I don't like it either but you have to pick your battles these days.
By draining aquifers, for one:
* https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06879-8
* https://unu.edu/inweh/news/world-enters-era-of-global-water-...
Certain desalination exists, but can get expensive and energy-intensive (and they it may be necessary to transport the fresh water great distances).
China has destroyed oil import demand the equivalent of annual UK oil imports in the last six months, for example. Push those oil and diesel prices up, hold them up as long as possible. Several countries have banned internal combustion vehicle imports to push the needle on the EV trajectory (Ethiopia, Laos) because they are fossil fuel poor. Global EV sales have spiked, and already exceed 25% of total annual vehicles sales (~90M units/year) [4] [5]. We're just discussing how long until we reach tipping points that further accelerate the transition.
How much fossil supply chain infra must be impaired to further move the needle? Hard to say, excited to find out. Electrify or get wrecked. To not to is a choice.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49479229 (citations)
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49647405 (citations)
[3] Gas car sales fell 40% in August in China [Charts] - https://carnewschina.com/2026/09/08/gas-car-sales-fell-40-in... - September 8th, 2026
[4] Global sales of combustion engine cars peaked in 2017 - https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/global-sales-of-com... - May 21st, 2026
[5] https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales
(as of this comment, China has enough EV manufacturing capacity to satisfy global demand; they are currently export constrained and cannot ship fast enough to meet demand)
Still that makes very clear why Venezuela had to happen before Iran.
As someone who drives a 2003 Golf TDI, I'm currently looking at CAD 2.40/L: EUR1.49/USD1.73 per L.
Instead of tracking cost increases of fuel, I try to conceptualize prices for all things in equivalent fuel or metered energy.
The fed can overlook energy and food in their "preferred metric of inflation", but that's 90% of what I care about as an individual. Very interesting to track your purchasing power in MWh
He also said he "will end the endless wars" and stressed there were "no new wars" under his first presidency in the 2024 campaing.
And on election night he said "I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars."
A lying politician is nothing new but he's doing it more bigly than most.
I think saying he's lying is too generous. It implies intent. I think he's just not capable of separating truth from fiction anymore.
Is there any reason why Diesel costs more? I was always under the impression that it was a less-refined fuel therefore cheaper.
While diesel is less refined, the difference isn't much. These days both are heavily refined products, and the cost to refine gasoline isn't very much per gallon.
The real answer: supply/demand is the key factor in the price you pay. Cost to create/build a product generally sets a floor on the price you pay: a business that isn't making money will stop making the product (loss leaders exist, but not a factor here).
That's the problem with hindsight theories, especially if only using a limit horizon into the past.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2022/08/31/1120422634/breaking-down-the-...
This started, I believe when fracking became a major thing (the late 2000s), because shale oils tends to have less heavy hydrocarbons then the old wells.
And the ethanol makes the fuel less valuable (energy reduction per litre) moreso than biodiesel.
Jet fuel and diesel fuel come from similar parts of the barrel. Refineries can largely choose what kind of fuel they produce for a given unit of input. One barrel doesn't always split into the same fractions. There is configuration involved.
EDIT: meaning "less taxes"
In the US diesel taxes are often different from gasoline, but polluting is generally not a factor.
I was always under the impression that a big part of the difference in cost is largely due to taxes.
* https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/diesel_prices/
* https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/
I am not interested in nominal new highs.
Rule of Acquisition number 35: Peace is good for business.
Really wish I had a better memory so I could memorize these as a lot of them would be really fun as everyday quips.
That said, the patriot is a lot cheaper replace than the things it was defending so it was a good investment even if expensive.
We know Ukraine is working on a not a patriot interceptor that can do ballistic missiles, but so far there is no word on progress. (this seems to be intentional - they are not saying why but experts have some good guesses)
Losing at war is universally bad. And long stalemated forever wars can be just as bad for both sides.
Which is why I'm no longer in the party... Where did the rest of us go?
I think cost per kilometre/lightyear/rod is close
Diesel at the local garage I passed at lunchtime is £1.89 (57% more). The web [0] suggests that is more expensive than anywhere in europe other than France and Denmark for some reason.
So nowhere near "half as cheap". Throw in poor American average mileage and I suspect the price-per-mile is quite similar.
[0] https://www.fuel-prices.eu/live/
even if you do not drive, it affects every delivery
imagine this pattern through 2029
https://gasprices.aaa.com/
800 more days, even just a penny increase per day
we're out of $4 Million dollar tomahawks and the iranians have endless supply of $50K drones
strategic oil reserve is about to experience permanent catastrophic damage from being drained too low
Apparently salt domes have a life span, you pump water in to remove oil. The water wears at the domes and removes more salt creating a larger cavern. It's not that we pumped out so much oil lately, it's because we were pumping out little bits over the last 5 decades constantly wearing at the domes. They were created at the time to only be used in a catastrophic situation, not when ever you want to control the price of oil......
Either way, you are correct in that their life has come to an end, we will require more expensive above ground storage going forward or we can electrify.
Inflation is high ... but not that high
There is nothing stopping US refineries from producing more diesel, you can use both sweet and sour, this is speculators squeezing the markets.
What a great time it should be to electrify heavy transportation. If they can do it in mining and construction, why can't transportation...
Aren't they already producing as much as they can? Which is not sufficient given that globally a significant fraction of refining capacity is offline.
Or are you saying the Ukraine drone strikes have not affected the output at a scale where it matters globally?
But then it also makes Chinese EV including trucks extremely attractive replacement. So China making a profit as well.
Ukraine strikes to impact the world price. However most of the impact is in Russia, elsewhere the effect is less. Iran is larger effect because the middle east as a more significant share of global oil. (both have an effect, but Iran is larger)
Because supply side. Can't have our oil barons losing out.
24 years ago, I recall diesel being $1.25/gallon, and hamburger meat at a little local grocer for $1/pound any time they had a sale.
Now, even going to Costco, their ground chuck is $6/pound.
If you look at the timeline, and the demographics of voters who lost enthusiasm for Biden between 2020 and 2024, it looks like a whole lotta the Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck decided to vote their pocketbooks.
Vs. back in '72, when Biden was just getting elected to the Senate, Pres. Nixon was a noisy anti-inflation zealot. (Not saying Nixon was sane, nor legal...) Since Nixon was re-elected with >60% of the popular vote - in spite of negatives like the Vietnam War - I'd say that the Dem's failure to follow a so-obvious winning reelection strategy was exactly what handed Trump the opportunity to make the decisions which you so strongly dislike.
Incompetence or malice? Both is also possible...