Here’s all the dumb oil wars that electric cars have nothing to do with

Right now the world has several oil conflicts running at once: the Strait of Hormuz shipping route has been mostly closed for six months, a Saudi pipeline was hit by a drone attack, Yemen's Houthi rebels threaten another shipping lane nearby, Ukraine has knocked out much of Russia's oil refining capacity, Libya has paused some oil production, and the US has moves affecting oil in both Venezuela and Cuba. Together these disruptions touch a large share of the world's oil supply, and analysts say there's no clear end in sight. Diesel prices in the US have hit an all-time high, and oil-dependent countries are burning through emergency reserves to keep prices from spiking further.

The throughline is that electric vehicles aren't part of any of these conflicts, but they are cushioning the impact. Countries that have shifted more driving to electricity, notably China, have cut their oil demand enough to blunt some of the price shock. Russia, cut off from parts of its own fuel supply after refinery attacks, has seen electric car sales jump. Cuba, squeezed by a US oil blockade, is leaning on solar power and electric vehicles to keep basic services running.

For homeowners, the practical link is indirect but real: this is more evidence that anything plugged into the electric grid, from an EV in the driveway to a heat pump (an electric heating and cooling system) in the basement, is less exposed to oil-market chaos than anything that depends on a tank of gas, diesel, or heating oil.