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We have some more really interesting videos coming about the economic impact of the Iran war. Be on the lookout this weekend.
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If you have watched our recent videos unpacking the conflict in Iran, you already know it is a complicated story. But whatever your read on it, there is one thing that is for certain: you are paying more for energy now than you did before the war started.
Oil touched $126 a barrel in April, its highest price in four years, and US gas prices hit $4.30 a gallon at their peak. That is a 55% increase from where crude was sitting the day before the war started.
And the consequences are exactly what you would expect. When it costs more to move, heat, and power things, prices go up. But, as strange as it might sound, higher oil prices also make some things cheaper.
One of the reasons why is something economists call complementary goods. These are products consumed together, where the price of one affects the demand for the other.
The classic textbook example is petrol and cars. When petrol gets expensive, people drive less and start looking for something that sips fuel rather than gulps it. Suddenly, big trucks seem a lot less appealing, fewer people want them, and so the price drops.
When oil got cheap in 2014–2016, Americans rushed back to SUVs and trucks, so sales of large, fuel-inefficient vehicles soared.
Now, the opposite is happening. SUVs were down 17% and trucks down 14% in April 2026, the fourth consecutive monthly decline. Prices haven't collapsed yet, but four straight months of falling demand tends to have only one destination.
At the same time, Toyota’s EV sales rose 139% in March 2026.
EVs are still connected to oil through the power grid, but if you are charging at home, it barely matters. You’re paying around $0.03–$0.05 per mile, compared to $0.12–$0.15 in a gas car. The more expensive oil gets, the better that trade looks.
Higher oil prices are also, oddly enough, pushing car insurance down.
When petrol gets expensive, people drive less, which means fewer accidents, which means fewer claims. And fewer claims mean insurers pay out less and eventually pass some of that back to drivers.
Every 10% rise in gas prices reduces driving by around 3%. If prices hold, total mileage could fall 10% to 12% by the end of 2026, which translates to the average annual premium falling from $2,222 to $2,209. That is a saving of $27 — I did promise you some things were getting cheaper. This counts.
There is also a third thing happening, less obvious than the other two.
When oil is cheap, manufacturing and shipping products from overseas is straightforward and competitively priced. But when oil is expensive, freight costs rise, and the cost of transporting a new item from a factory to a shelf goes up, which ultimately means that cost gets passed on to the buyer.
Secondhand goods already sitting in the country don’t carry that cost as they were made and shipped before prices spiked. The result is that inflation in new goods effectively makes used goods relatively cheaper, not necessarily in absolute terms, but relative to their new equivalents.
The resale market was already projected to hit $82 billion in the US this year. Oil prices, inflation and tariffs are pushing it further still.
Used electric vehicle sales jumped 12% in the first months of this year. Refurbished electronics platform Back Market hit $3.5 billion in sales, up 32% in a single year.
The honest version of all this is that getting cheaper is not the same as being a win. Car insurance falling because people cannot afford to put fuel in their cars is not a silver lining most would choose. The secondhand market booming because new goods are out of reach for a growing share of households is not exactly cause for celebration.
If things continue as they are, the $27 you save on insurance this year will sit awkwardly next to the $385 extra you will spend on gas.
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For most of its history, OPEC was the most powerful oil pricing cartel in the world, controlling more than half of global supply at its peak.
Today, it controls less than a quarter, and last week, one of its founding members walked out the door.
On April 27th, the United Arab Emirates officially left OPEC after more than 60 years of membership. The UAE is the group's fourth largest producer, accounting for roughly 12% of its output. So this is not a small exit.
As countries leave, OPEC loses pricing power. And as it loses pricing power, more countries consider leaving. In our latest video, we look at how that feedback loop works, what was really behind the UAE's decision, and whether this marks the beginning of the end for the cartel that once moved global oil markets.
Is the UAE just the first domino to fall?
