Polestar CEO says ‘pump anxiety’ is driving EV demand as fuel prices surge from Iran war

For years, the electric vehicle industry’s biggest problem had a name: range anxiety. Now, according to the chief executive of Polestar, the anxiety has moved to the other side of the forecourt. “People are concerned, ‘how much do I pay at the gas station?’” Michael Lohscheller told CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe on Wednesday, coining a phrase “pump anxiety” that captures a shift the entire automotive industry is struggling to absorb.

The context is not subtle. Since the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran on 28 February, the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply, has been effectively closed to commercial shipping. Brent crude has surged past $100 a barrel. In the United Kingdom, average petrol prices have risen by more than 25 pence per litre since early March, with diesel tracking nearly 45 pence higher, according to RAC Fuel Watch. Across the European Union, petrol has breached €2 per litre in several markets. The result is a measurable, continent-wide recalculation of what it costs to drive.

The economics have flipped

Lohscheller’s argument is that the cost equation has inverted. “In the past, people considered EVs for idealistic reasons, and now the decision is all about money,” he said. The claim is supported by the numbers. EU electric vehicle registrations jumped 51% in March compared with the same month a year earlier, with Italy recording a 65.7% increase in battery-electric registrations in the first quarter, France following at 50.4%, and Germany at 41.3%, according to industry data compiled by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. In the United Kingdom, Polestar’s home market in operational terms, Chinese EV manufacturers and European incumbents alike are reporting surges in online inquiries and test-drive bookings.

The shift is not uniform. In the United States, where petrol prices have topped $4 per gallon for the first time in four years, the effect has been more muted. Used EV sales rose 12% year on year in the first quarter, and 17% over the previous quarter, but new EV sales have not yet shown the same spike. Lohscheller cited disappearing federal tax incentives and broader consumer uncertainty as factors dampening American demand.

A company under pressure

The pump-anxiety thesis arrives at a moment when Polestar could use some good news. The Geely-controlled, Sweden-headquartered company reported a widening net loss of $383 million in the first quarter, more than double the $166 million loss in the same period last year. Revenue was flat at $633 million despite a 7% increase in deliveries to a record 13,126 vehicles. Gross margins swung to negative 3.2%, down from positive 10.3% a year earlier, a deterioration the company attributed to pricing pressure, EU and US tariffs, lower carbon-credit sales, and unfavourable foreign-exchange movements driven by the weakening Chinese yuan.

The financial picture reveals the paradox at the heart of the EV industry in 2026. Demand is rising, but so is the cost of competing. Polestar manufactures primarily in China, which makes its vehicles subject to both American and European tariff regimes designed to counter the competitive advantage of Chinese production. The company described China’s domestic market as “hyper competitive” and suggested Europe needed to “speed up” its own response.

Range anxiety is over. What comes next is harder.

Lohscheller, who previously ran Opel and Vauxhall, was blunt about the range question. “Range anxiety, I think this has gone,” he said at the Financial Times Future of the Car conference, also held on Wednesday. The cheapest Polestar 2 now offers 344 miles of official range on the WLTP test cycle. The dual-motor Polestar 3 SUV manages 402 miles. An 82-kilowatt-hour Polestar 2 can be fully charged overnight on a domestic EV tariff in the UK for roughly £15, a fraction of what a comparable petrol car costs to refuel at current prices.

But lower running costs have not yet translated into lower purchase anxiety. Lohscheller acknowledged that EV residual values remain a pain point, lagging behind equivalent combustion cars. New-car pricing pressure, driven by manufacturers scrambling to meet the UK’s zero-emission vehicle mandate quotas or face fines, has led to aggressive discounting that erodes used-EV values further. “I’m asking for stability,” he said of the regulatory environment. “Every three months to have a new debate about these rules changing is not helping anybody.”

The bigger picture

The fuel-price shock is reshaping automotive markets well beyond Polestar’s niche. BYD exported more than 120,000 electric and hybrid vehicles in March alone, a 65% increase year on year. Renault has described the Middle East conflict as having triggered a “seismic shift” in EV adoption. The International Energy Agency’s chief, Fatih Birol, has said countries are likely to pivot to renewables as a way to mitigate geopolitical risk, calling the Hormuz disruption the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.

The irony is that the crisis most likely to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles is also the crisis most likely to punish the companies trying to lead it. Higher energy costs raise manufacturing expenses. Tariff walls make cross-border competition more expensive. Currency volatility erodes margins on vehicles built in one country and sold in another. Polestar’s first-quarter results are a case study in all three dynamics operating simultaneously.

Lohscheller’s framing, that the conversation has moved from range to price, from ideology to arithmetic, is probably correct. The question is whether Polestar, a company losing money on every percentage point of margin while navigating tariffs, competition, and a war-driven energy shock, is positioned to benefit from the shift it is describing. Pump anxiety may be good for EVs in the aggregate. Whether it is good for Polestar depends on whether the company can turn rising demand into something its balance sheet has not yet demonstrated: a sustainable business.