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European countries have been scrambling to find alternative sources of oil and gas following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in Feb. 2021.

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Russia’s revenues from fossil fuel exports collapsed in December, according to a new report, significantly hampering President Vladimir Putin’s ability to finance the war in Ukraine.

The findings, Ukrainian officials and campaigners say, illustrate the effectiveness of targeting Russia’s oil revenues and underscore the urgent need for Western policymakers to ratchet up the financial pressure on Moscow in order to help Kyiv prevail.

Published Wednesday by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, an independent Finnish think tank, the report found the first month of the European Union’s ban on seaborne imports of Russian crude and the G-7’s price cap had cost Moscow an estimated 160 million euros ($171.8 million) per day.

CREA’s report said the Western measures were largely responsible for a 17% fall in Russia’s earnings from fossil fuel exports in the final month of 2022. It means that Russia — one of the world’s top oil producers and exporters — saw revenues from fossil fuel exports slump to their lowest level since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February.

“The EU’s oil ban and the oil price cap have finally kicked in and the impact is as significant as expected,” Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at CREA, said in a statement.

“This shows that we have the tools to help Ukraine prevail against Russia’s aggression. It’s essential to lower the price cap to a level that denies taxable oil profits to the Kremlin, and to restrict the remaining oil and gas imports from Russia,” Myllyvirta said.

The G-7, Australia and the EU implemented a $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian oil on Dec. 5. It came alongside a move by the EU and U.K. to impose a ban on the seaborne imports of Russian crude oil.

Together, the measures reflected by far the most significant step to curtail the fossil fuel export revenue that is funding the Kremlin’s onslaught in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow on January 6, 2022.

Mikhail Klimentyev | Afp | Getty Images

Energy analysts had been skeptical about the impact of a price cap on Russian oil, particularly as Moscow had been able to reroute much of its European seaborne shipments to the likes of China, India and Turkey.

Russia retaliated to the Western measures late last month by banning oil sales to countries that abide by the price cap.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has previously said a Western price cap on Russian oil would not impact its ability to sustain what it describes as its “special military operation” in Ukraine. Peskov also warned the measure would destabilize global energy markets, Reuters reported.

‘Financial bloodline for Putin’s war’

Oleg Ustenko, economic advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Wednesday that while it is “very good news” that Russia is losing revenue from fossil fuel exports as a result of the Western measures, they were “definitely not enough.”

Ustenko echoed Zelenskyy’s calls for a price cap that is set at a much lower level, saying at a briefing that each escalation of economic sanctions against the Kremlin should see the oil price cap come down to a target range of $20 to $30 a barrel.

There is “no reason to wait and see,” Ustenko said. “It is already clear.”

“The EU and G7 have the power and all means to cut this bloodline. Only force and money speak to the Kremlin.”

Svitlana Romanko

Founder and director of Razom We Stand

CREA’s report found that the measures caused a fall in shipment volumes and prices for Russian oil that has cut the country’s export revenues by 180 million euros per day.

By increasing exports of refined oil products to the EU and the rest of the world, the report said Moscow had been able to claw back 20 million euros per day, resulting in a net daily loss of 160 million euros since the Western measures came into force.

Russia still makes an estimated 640 million euros per day from exporting fossil fuels, the report said.

“The first month of the embargo proves what we’ve been saying from the beginning of the invasion: income from exports of fossil fuels is the financial bloodline for Putin’s war,” said Svitlana Romanko, founder and director of Ukrainian human rights group Razom We Stand (Together We Stand).

“The EU and G7 have the power and all means to cut this bloodline,” she added. “Only force and money speak to the Kremlin.”

Romanko called on the price cap coalition to lower the price limit, strengthen the enforcement of the embargo and introduce additional sanctions to close loopholes.

CREA’s report says lowering the oil price cap against Russia to between $25 to $30 a barrel, a range it notes is still “well above” production and transport costs, would slash Russia’s oil export revenue by at least 100 million euros per day.

It says that the Western price cap coalition boasts “strong leverage” to push down the price caps, adding that “Russia has not found a meaningful alternative to vessels owned and/or insured in the G7 for the transportation of Russian crude and oil products from Baltic and Black Sea ports.”

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Biden’s $635M good-bye, Trump’s DOT pick will investigate Tesla, and a look ahead

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January 15, 2025

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Biden's 5M good-bye, Trump's DOT pick will investigate Tesla, and a look ahead

On today’s episode of Quick Charge we explore the uncertainty around the future of EV incentives, the roles different stakeholders will play in shaping that future, and our friend Stacy Noblet from energy consulting firm ICF stops by to share her take on what lies ahead.

We’ve got a couple of different articles and studies referenced in this forward-looking interview, and I’ve done my best to link to all of them below. If I missed one, let me know in the comments.

Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.

Got news? Let us know!
Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.

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In December, EV sales were still up and incentives were still sweet – Kelley Blue Book

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January 15, 2025

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In December, EV sales were still up and incentives were still sweet – Kelley Blue Book

December-EV-salesKelley
Chevy Equinox EV (Source: GM)

EV sales kept up their momentum in December 2024, with incentives playing a big role, according to the latest Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book report.

December’s strong EV sales saw an average transaction price (ATP) of $55,544, which helped push the industry-wide ATP higher, according to Kelley Blue Book. The December ATP for an EV was higher year-over-year by 0.8%, slightly below the industry average, and higher month-over-month by 1.1%. Tesla ATPs were higher year-over-year by 10.5%.

Incentives for EVs remained elevated in December, although they were slightly lower month-over-month at 14.3% of ATP, down from 14.7% in November.

EV incentives were higher by an impressive 41% year-over-year and have been above 12% of ATP for six consecutive months. Strong sales incentives, which averaged more than $6,700 per sale in 2024, were one reason EV sales surpassed 1.3 million units last year, according to Cox Automotive, a new record for volume and share.

(My colleague Jameson Dow reported yesterday, “In 2024, the world sold 3.5 million more EVs than it did in the previous year … This increase is larger than the 3.2 million increase in EV sales from the previous year – meaning that EV sales aren’t just up, but that the rate of growth is itself increasing.”)

Kelley Blue Book estimated that in December, approximately 84,000 vehicles – or 5.6% of total sales – transacted at prices higher than $80,000 – the highest volume ever. KBB lumps gas cars and EVs together into this luxury vehicle category, so this is where Tesla Cybertruck is slotted.

However, Tesla bundles sales figures of Cybertruck with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi(!) into a category it calls “other models,” so we don’t know for sure exactly how many Cybertrucks Tesla sold in Q4, much less in December. However, Electrek‘s Fred Lambert estimates between 9,000 and 12,000 Cybertrucks were sold in Q4, and that’s not a stellar sales figure.

What will January bring when it comes to EV ATPs? What about tax credits? Check back in a month and I’ll fill you in.

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Tesla claims Cybertruck is ‘best-selling electric pickup’ without even confiming sales

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January 15, 2025

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Tesla claims Cybertruck is 'best-selling electric pickup' without even confiming sales

Tesla is now claiming that Cybertruck was the ‘best-selling electric pickup in US’ last year despite not even reporting the number of deliveries.

There’s a lot of context needed here.

As we often highlighted, Tesla is sadly one of, if not the most, opaque automakers regarding sales reports.

Tesla doesn’t break down sales per model or even region.

For comparison, here’s Ford’s Q4 2024 sales report compared to Tesla’s:

You could argue that Tesla has fewer models than Ford, and that’s true, but Tesla’s report literally has two lines despite having six different models.

There’s no reason not to offer a complete breakdown like all other automakers other than trying to make it hard to verify the health of each vehicle program.

This has been the case with the Cybertruck. Tesla is bundling its Cybertruck deliveries with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi deliveries.

Despite this lack of disclosure, Tesla has been able to claim that the Cybertruck has become “the best-selling electric pickup truck” in the US in 2024:

It very well might be true. Ford disclosed 33,510 F-150 Lightning truck deliveries in the US in 2024 while most estimates are putting Cybertruck deliveries at around 40,000 units.

Those are global deliveries, but Tesla only delivered the Cybertruck in the US, Canada, and Mexico in 2024, and most of the deliveries are believed to be in the US.

However, there’s essential context needed here, as we highlighted in our recent ‘Tesla Cybertruck sales are disastrous‘ article.

First off, Tesla had a backlog of over 1 million reservations for the Cybertruck that it has been building since 2019. This led many to believe Tesla already had years of demand baked in for the truck and that production would be the constraint.

However, based on estimates, again, because Tesla refuses to disclose the data, Cybertruck deliveries were either flat or down in Q4 versus Q3 despite Tesla introducing cheaper versions of the vehicle and ramping up production.

Again, that’s after just about 40,000 deliveries.

Furthermore, with almost 11,000 deliveries in Q4 in the US, Ford more likely than not outsold Cybertruck with the F-150 Lightning in Q4.

Electrek’s Take

Tesla is in damage control here. There’s no doubt that it is having issues selling the Cybertruck.

Inventory is full of Cybertrucks and Tesla is now discounting them and offering free lifetime Supercharging.

Tesla is great at ramping up production, and it’s clear the Cybertruck is not production-constrained anymore. It is demand-constrained despite having over 1 million reservations.

Again, those reservations were made before Tesla unveiled the production version, which happened to have less range and cost significantly more.

The upcoming cheaper single motor version should help with demand, but I have serious doubts Tesla can ramp this program up to more than 100,000 units in the US.

As a reminder, Tesla installed a production capacity of 250,000 units annually and Musk said he could see Tesla selling 500,000 Cybertrucks per year.

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