Petrol near $4.50 a gallon is reviving US demand for EVs just as a Comex copper record widens the cost gap automakers are trying to close
US drivers are turning back toward electric vehicles as petrol prices climb, but the automakers meant to supply them are contending with a record run in the metal an EV needs most. Gasoline has averaged $4.47 a gallon nationally as of September 20, according to AAA, up roughly 40% from a year earlier as the US war with Iran keeps oil markets on edge. Copper, which an EV uses at nearly three times the intensity of a gas-powered car, touched a record $14,343 a metric ton on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange on August 10, clearing a record set five days earlier, according to Mining.com.
The rally is a tariff story as much as a demand story. Traders have been positioning ahead of a US Commerce Department recommendation for a duty on refined copper imports, pulling metal into American warehouses and draining stockpiles in London. Chile, the world’s top copper producer, mined 2.9 million tonnes from January through July, down 7.1% from a year earlier and the weakest pace since 2003, according to data reported by the Rio Times citing Chile’s state copper commission, Cochilco.
That collision is landing squarely on EV pricing. The average new electric vehicle sold for $54,813 in August, a 9.4% premium over the market as a whole, Kelley Blue Book reported on September 10. The gap has narrowed from more than 16% a year earlier as automakers cut prices to move inventory, but it remains wide enough to deter buyers already coping with the loss of federal EV tax credits that expired this year.
Detroit has already taken the hit once. Ford Motor recorded a $19.5 billion charge in December 2025 tied to its EV retreat: about $8.5 billion for canceling future electric models, including a large pickup planned for Tennessee, and $6 billion for writing down its battery joint venture with South Korea’s SK On after that partnership ended. Ford is replacing the fully electric F-150 Lightning with an extended-range hybrid version and now expects hybrids, range-extended EVs and pure EVs combined to reach half its global sales by 2030, up from a current 17%.
Even so, demand signals are turning. Fifty-seven percent of drivers surveyed said gasoline prices had increased their interest in EVs, and 53% said they were more open to buying one than a year ago, according to a HERE Technologies and SBD Automotive index published this year. Separately, 56% of in-market shoppers told Cox Automotive in a May survey that high gas prices made them more likely to consider a hybrid or plug-in hybrid.
Electric vehicles will account for 32% of incremental copper demand growth over the next decade, and could draw close to 6 million metric tons a year by 2035, more than double current levels, said Eleonor Kramarz, global head of critical minerals and energy transition consulting at S&P Global Energy, in comments to The Daily Upside. “The story with copper is really one of supply and demand being out of balance,” said Doug Daley, a portfolio manager at Core Commodity Management, noting that new mines can take 15 to 20 years to reach production. “Everyone knew this was coming.”
Automakers are experimenting with lighter electrical architectures and aluminum conductors to cut copper content per vehicle, but aluminum’s lower conductivity limits how far substitution can go. Kramarz said the industry should expect the savings to be incremental, not transformative, leaving copper as the cost line EV makers cannot engineer their way around.