They had no engines and no exhaust pipes, but you could still hear them on Saturday morning, approaching 60 miles per hour beneath the streets of Manhattan.
In the bowels of the Javits Center convention hall, a fleet of new electric vehicles wove through a test course at the New York International Auto Show, pulling hairpin turns and slaloming between traffic cones. One by one, the vehicles tore off from the starting line, tires screeching against concrete.
The sound drew Roderick Harvey, 29, down the escalators to watch as the new vehicles flexed their capabilities. With the price of the premium gasoline that his Audi takes at $5 a gallon and rising, an electric vehicle was alluring.
“I drive about 30, 40 miles a day, so I’m looking at $92, almost $100 in gas prices,” Mr. Harvey said. “So I’m like, maybe I should trade in my car and get something electric for the time being.”
Mr. Harvey wasn’t alone in his consideration of an electric car. As the war with Iran continues, gas prices have soared and early signals suggest the added fuel costs may be nudging Americans toward hybrid or all-electric vehicles.
Notably, several brands have reported an uptick in electric vehicle sales in the opening months of 2026. Tesla has reported a modest year-over-year increase in sales, and Hyundai and General Motors’ Cadillac division have also seen electric car sales increase.
You didn’t have to go far from the auto show on Saturday to see why drivers are showing a renewed interest in such cars. Throughout New York City and in New Jersey, drivers stopping to fill their tanks grumbled about the mounting costs. Some also mused about switching to an electric vehicle.
The high fuel prices cut particularly deep for Chernoh Bah, a 58-year-old Uber driver from the Bronx. As he pulled his Toyota Highlander into a Mobil gas station on the west side of Manhattan, the price on the pump read $5.79 in cash, or $5.99 with a credit card.
Mr. Bah said it was higher than he’d seen in all his years driving, even in Manhattan, where he usually tries to avoid refueling.
“Twelve dollars for two gallons,” he said, unhooking the nozzle from the pump. “Just so I have enough gas to go somewhere to get it a little bit cheaper.”
Ride-share drivers like Mr. Bah front the money for fuel, and every extra cent at the pump cuts into their take-home pay. Mr. Bah said he had purchased a gas-powered car to avoid having to wait for an electric vehicle to recharge, but now, he said, he would gladly accept the trade-off.
“Right now I wish I had an electric vehicle,” he said.
With the war grinding into its second month, and the odds of a near-term resolution uncertain, there is little sign of relief at the pump.
The Strait of Hormuz, a vital maritime link at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, remains blocked by Iran, throttling oil and gas exports to the rest of the world. And attacks on energy infrastructure in Iran and the Gulf states have raised fears that supplies could remain constricted even after the war winds down.
For some, the high gas prices weren’t sufficient motivation to make the switch.
Caleb Smith, a mechanic from Kingston, N.Y., visiting the auto show, said he was impressed by the features on electric vehicles. He’d even be open to buying one, he said, if he were driving only locally. But he was skeptical that the country had sufficiently built out the charging stations necessary to support driving long distances.
The financial appeal of an electric car has also dimmed somewhat since Congress eliminated a tax credit last year for newly purchased electric vehicles. For Matthew Russo, 44, a painter from Montclair, N.J., the loss of that incentive pushed him away from an electric vehicle — a move he had otherwise been considering.
“E.V.s are a little bit more expensive than regular cars now without the subsidies,” Mr. Russo said, as he filled up his tank at a gas station in Montclair. The pump displayed a price of $4.09 per gallon, almost $5 for premium. “If you’re saving $500 a year on gas, but you’re spending more than $500 on a more expensive car, then it doesn’t really work.”
But in the lower levels of the Javits Center, hundreds of people were at least willing to give the vehicles a look. Auto show attendees lined up to take a ride through the test course in one of the new electric models on display, which can accelerate sharply enough to pin drivers to their seats.
Katherine Steen, 30, from Long Island, said the latest models were an improvement over the last batch she’d seen during a trip to the show two years ago.
“At the very least, probably the next car I get would be a hybrid,” she said. “I don’t like the idea of relying completely on gasoline when there’s a lot of fluctuations in the market that you can’t control, based on who’s in control of the country.”
Chris Hippensteel is a reporter covering breaking news and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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