
TL;DR
European EV registrations jumped 51 per cent in March 2026 as oil prices topped $100 a barrel following the Iran war. Chinese brands are capturing the biggest gains, with BYD enquiries up 25,000 per cent on Carwow.
War has a way of rewriting consumer habits overnight. Since US and Israeli airstrikes hit Iran at the end of February, crude oil has soared past $100 a barrel for the first time since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The result at Europe’s petrol pumps has been immediate and painful.
The result at EV dealerships has been the opposite. Battery-electric vehicle registrations jumped 51 per cent in March across 14 key EU and EFTA markets, with more than 224,000 new EVs registered in a single month. That brought EVs to 22 per cent of all new car sales in those countries.
For the full first quarter, EU countries registered more than 500,000 new electric vehicles. That is a 33.5 per cent increase on the same period last year. The surge marks the sharpest quarterly acceleration in European EV adoption since pandemic-era subsidies first pushed buyers into battery power.
The Iran conflict has effectively shut down shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, threatening roughly one-fifth of global oil supply. The International Energy Agency called it the greatest global energy security challenge in history. For European drivers already squeezed by years of high living costs, the pump price spike was the final push.
Chinese brands have been the biggest beneficiaries. Purchase enquiries for BYD on Carwow’s platform grew by a staggering 25,000 per cent in Q1. Leapmotor saw a 436 per cent jump, and Xpeng rose 153 per cent.
Those numbers reflect online interest rather than deliveries, but the trend is translating into real sales. BYD’s registrations in Germany surged 327 per cent in March, giving it a 1.2 per cent market share in Europe’s largest car market. The growth comes as Tesla’s European registrations have collapsed amid boycotts linked to Elon Musk’s political activities, opening a gap that Chinese manufacturers are racing to fill.
Traditional carmakers are feeling the shift too. Renault said 50 per cent of its UK registrations in April were EVs. Its Renault 5 became Britain’s best-selling electric car that month. EV-related enquiries on Renault’s UK website climbed 48 per cent since the war began.
Volvo Cars reported rising orders, especially for its entry-level EX30 compact SUV. “Customers are most sensitive to increase in oil prices” at the lower end of the range, said chief commercial officer Erik Severinson. The EX30 starts at around £31,500 in Britain, making it one of the more accessible premium EVs on the market.
On the second-hand market, OLX reported an 80 per cent jump in EV enquiries on its French platform since hostilities started. CEO Christian Gisy said the conflict has “fundamentally reshaped how people think about energy security in their daily lives.”
The question is whether this momentum holds. Previous oil shocks, including the 2022 spike after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, produced temporary surges in EV interest that faded as fuel prices normalised. But the charging infrastructure is far more mature now, Chinese competitors have made EVs significantly cheaper, and EU emissions regulations are tightening further in 2027.
For European carmakers, the timing is bittersweet. The EV demand they spent billions building factories for has finally arrived. But the brands capturing the most dramatic growth are not Volkswagen, Stellantis, or BMW. They are BYD, Leapmotor, and Xpeng.

