Soaring Gas Prices Could Send Buyers Crawling Back To EVs And Hybrids

Good morning! It's Wednesday, March 18, 2026, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. This is where you'll find the most important stories that are shaping the way Americans drive and get around.

In this morning's edition, rising gas prices are making buyers rethink their aversion to EVs and hybrids, Bentley is cutting nearly 300 jobs thanks to tariffs and the EV rollback, the gas Porsche Macan is on-track for 2028 (but don't tell the CEO its just a gussied-up Audi) and Ford is investigating a fatal accident at a Ohio transmission plant.

Just when we thought we were out, they pulled us back in.

With gas prices reaching levels we haven't seen in years thanks to the U.S. and Israel's war with Iran, there's a hell of a lot of uncertainty for automakers, dealership and owners. Now, it's starting to look like customers could once again be pushed toward electric vehicles and hybrids. This is, of course, great timing, considering the fact that automakers around the globe are drastically scaling back their EV operations.

Dealers all over the world are looking to stock up on electric vehicles as the price of a barrel of oil hovers right around $100. History has shown that oil price hikes can lead the massive changes in consumer shopping habits. During the 1970s energy crisis, U.S. buyers opted for smaller vehicles. It set in motion the trend of Japanese automakers dominating the market for years to come. 

Here's what could happen next for us. From Reuters:

Analysts say the recent sharp increases in fuel prices likely will not significantly alter shopping ​patterns for new cars right away. It often takes a sustained period of elevated prices, or for them to eclipse a psychological milestone before car buyers shift their focus to more fuel-efficient choices, industry watchers said.

"Consumers are ​highly reactive to gas prices, but it tends to be that it has to hit a certain round number," said Kevin Roberts, director of economic and market intelligence at online marketplace CarGurus. "The $4 (per gallon) threshold may be the one to watch," he said, noting that was a tipping point for EV interest during the last oil shock, in 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Zach Xavier, a customer in the U.S., did not want to wait. He visited Recharged, a used EV dealership in Richmond, Virginia, with ​his wife on Friday to trade in a combustion-engine SUV for an electric one, and also purchased a second, smaller EV.

"I'm trying to get in before everybody freaks out," he said.

So far, higher prices do not ​seem to have fazed U.S. new car shoppers, according to activity on some vehicle-research sites.

CarGurus said late last week that it had not yet seen major shifts in EV searches. Another site, Edmunds, said the share of shoppers looking at ‌electrified vehicles in ⁠the first week after the war started ticked up slightly, to 22.4% from 20.7% the previous week.

Reuters asserts that its far more likely Europe sees an EV uptick than the U.S., thanks partially to the fact government tax breaks for electric vehicle purchases are being reintroduced. The numbers back up the idea that a shift is underway.

In Germany, EV-related traffic for online car dealer MeinAuto has increased by 40% since the start of the Iran war. "Our consultations have also revealed that many people are currently focusing more intently on the running costs of their cars," the company said in a statement.

In a survey of 1,164 people conducted on March 12 in Germany by online marketplace Carwow, ​48% of respondents said that spiking fuel prices "would influence ​their decision to consider an EV or hybrid."

Between ⁠March 2 and March 12, up to 66% of shoppers were looking at EVs, up from 55% at the end of February, Carwow said.

Things will have to get pretty damn dire in the U.S. for a major EV shift to happen. In 2025, EV sales accounted for just 7.7% of new car sales, and the Trump administration — in all of its infinite wisdom — killed the $7,500 EV tax credit.

Cox Automotive says that for most U.S. consumers to consider switching to an EV or hybrid, gas would have to hit $6 per gallon — something that has never happened before. The highest average we've ever seen was $5.02 per gallon in June of 2022 — during the meat of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Bentley says it's cutting 275 jobs in sales, distribution and administration as it braces for more turbulence in an automotive market that has found itself in a much different place than it once thought it would be in. All in all, 150 employees will be outright cut, and the additional reductions will come through retirements and internal reassignments. It works out to about 6% of Bentley's mainly UK-based, 4,600-person workforce.

In 2025, Bentley's global deliveries fell 4.8% to 10,131 vehicles, thanks of weakening demand in China for European luxury brands. From Automotive News:

"We are not acting in an emergency, but in general, the automotive industry is under pressure in every aspect," CEO Frank-Steffen Walliser said on an earnings call March 17. "Cost management is definitely a higher priority everywhere in the automotive industry at the moment."

Walliser said Bentley needed to get the right cost structure in place to increase robustness to cope with an "ever-changing environment."

[...]

Bentley is bracing for the prospect of slower U.S. sales amid a turbulent political and economic situation.

"This year will be challenging for everyone that is doing business in the United States, because we feel that uncertainty is here to stay," Bentley's Chief Financial Officer Axel Dewitz said on the call.

Bentley said that the direct and indirect costs of tariffs on its exports to the U.S. were €42 million. 

The brand's operating profit margin dropped to 8.3 percent in 2025 from 14 percent in 2024, as the company wrote off the costs of new models that were due to use the SSP61 electric platform being developed by VW Group's Porsche. The platform has been postponed to the middle of the next decade.

Operating profit was €216 million, down from €373 million in 2024.

Because of weakening demand for hyper-luxury EVs, Bentley is scaling back its plans for five EVs to just one by 2030. The SUV will use the same Premium Platform Electric architecture that underpins the Porsche Macan and Cayenne Electric.

Instead of EVs, the company says it's going to focus on plug-in hybrids. Its next-generation cars that are set to replace existing models will be PHEVs based on a new platform.

Elsewhere in Volkswagen Group Land, Porsche says its not looking to speed up development of its gas-powered Macan replacement to fill a two-year lineup gap. It also doesn't intent for the small crossover to simply be a reskinned Audi Q5.

Last July Porsche's then-CEO, Oliver Blume, said the automaker would launch a gas Macan replacement by 2028. In October, CFO Jochen Breckner said the German automaker would build the last of the current-generation gas Macan (which has been in production since early 2014) in mid-2026, meaning the EV Macan would be the only Macan until 2028. That's a hell of a risk. From Automotive News:

Porsche sold 27,139 Macans in the U.S. in 2025, making the nameplate the brand's bestseller in a crucial market. Around one-third of sales were electric.

Automotive News Europe has reported that Porsche is developing the gasoline Macan replacement to be based on Audi's Premium Platform Combustion platform, which underpins the Q5 and other models. The third-generation Q5 launched in 2025.

An analyst asked if there's a way for Porsche to accelerate the replacement vehicle's arrival because three years to develop "basically a top hat for this platform seems like a long time."

Leiters said it's important to utilize commonalities between Porsche and Audi for the upcoming vehicle but pushed back on the analyst's characterization of the model.

"We have to make sure that this is a real Porsche," Leiters said. "This needs some content, some product substance, some technology ... which will be new on these cars. And therefore a certain time is necessary to come to industrialization and to come to the launch of this product."

Porsche is set to pay a one-off licensing payment of about $1.15 billion to Audi in 2026 for the honor of using its platform. Well, as Leiters put it, the deal is for several models "we are doing together" on both sides. There's no word yet on what those cars may be.

Ford is investigating a fatal accident that happened at its Sharonville Transmission Plant in Ohio on the morning of March 16. A press machine was undergoing routine maintenance when it was accidentally turned on, pinning an employee within it. He was freed from the machine and medics started life-saving measures, but he later died at Bethesda North Hospital. From the Detroit Free Press:

"There were multiple witnesses to this incident and it is considered an industrial accident at this time," Sharonville police told the Cincinnati Enquirer.

The Hamilton County Coroner's Office, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and Ford's administrative staff are investigating.

Ford spokeswoman Jessica Enoch confirmed the accident to the Detroit Free Press on March 17 and said the automaker is in contact with the employee's family and working to support them.

"Our deepest condolences are with the friends and family of our team member," Enoch said in an emailed statement. "Counseling services are available for our employees at the plant. Safety is our highest priority and we are investigating the incident. We would also like to thank our community first responders."

[...]

UAW Vice President Laura Dickerson, who directs the Ford department, posted on social media that the union is "devastated to learn that a member was killed on the job at Ford's Sharonville Transmission Plant.

"No one should ever go to work and never come home," Dickerson said in the post. "It is our sacred duty as a union to protect the life, health and safety of our members on the job. Members deserve a workplace free of threat to life and body. Our prayers are with the family, co-workers and loved ones of our fallen brother."

Ford's 2.4-million-square-foot Sharonville, Ohio plant builds about 3,500 transmissions per day. It also employs over 2,000 people.

History.com

It was brutal out there for American automakers in the early-to-middle-20th Century. Studebaker is almost certainly one of the most notible casualties, if for the simple reason that it put out some of the sickest, most forward-thinking designs of the 1940s and '50s. At least it was able to briefly recover from its 1933 bankruptcy. Anyway, if you want to learn more, head over to History.com.

As of 8 a.m., Brent crude prices are back over $100, and this jump in prices is certainly being felt at the gas pump around the country as the the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran drags on. With the war in its third week and the Strait of Hormuz, where about 20% of the world's oil is supposed to flow daily, practically shut, gas prices continue to rise.

Overnight, the average price of a gallon of regular gas rose about 5 cents across the country to $3.84, according to AAA. The last time gas was over $3.84 for a gallon of regular was back in October of 2022, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. In any case, the average price of a gallon of gas is now up 86 cents — or about 25.2% — since the day before the war broke out, when it was $2.98.

Here's where national average prices stand right now, according to AAA:

AAA

These five states have the cheapest gas in the country:

AAA

These five states have the most expensive gas in the country:

AAA

Yeah, I'm not totally sold on Harry's latest album as a whole, but "American Girls" is definitely my favorite song  off of it. As someone in love with an American girl, I get what he's talking about. Maybe the rest of the album will grow on me, but I'm not so sure right now.