YOU'VE HEARD OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUBSTITUTES.

I'm no longer teaching actively, but the current crop of economics faculty can still use it.  "I continue to do some thinking, in the odd spare moment, about the economics of suburbs. Irreversible investments and dual immigration tracks first."  Ultimately, where I was in 2008 is where I still am in 2022, although I object to public policies that inhibit development of fuel sources before the backstop technology is practicable.

With fuel at $1.50 a gallon, many people are going to want those land yachts. (I've had that conversation with many of my colleagues. It never had anything to do with suburban machismo.) At $4 or $5 a gallon, many people are going to want something else. But there are depressingly many commentators who would have you believe that opening the Outer Continental Shelf or the Arctic Ocean to exploration (both of which I endorse) will bring back that $1.50 a gallon unleaded regular. Unlikely. If those sources were worth developing at those lower prices, the political pressure to permit it would have been present at those lower prices. Permanently higher gasoline prices are also where the reward to innovation will come from -- not from public investments. Battery-electric cars and other technologies do not make economic sense without permanently higher gasoline prices.

Those battery-electric cars don't come for free, either.  "Electric car prices could go up even as fuel prices soar."  That "even as" is silly, it suggests that there is some Electric Car Fairy who will magically deliver them as crude oil prices increase.  There's enough material in the following paragraphs to fill up several chalkboards with supply-and-demand diagrams.

It’s not impossible to make batteries without nickel — Volkswagen and other automakers are looking into other battery technologies that don’t use it or cobalt (the price of which has also been on the rise), according to Reuters.

But, like energy policy, battery production and integration is a big ship for automakers to turn around — if the prices of nickel and other metals stay up, it’ll be a race to switch to other tech before the shockwaves of higher prices and sanctions make their way through the supply chain. If automakers don’t make the shift quickly, it could put EVs even further out of reach for most Americans, at a time when gas prices are making them look better than ever.

You don't have to like the principles of economics, but when a good or service looks better than ever, demand increases, and buyers bid its price up.