Norway Says Half of New Cars Now Electric Or Hybrid (phys.org)

AmiMoJo quotes a report from Phys.Org: Norway, which already boasts the world's highest number of electric cars per capita, said Monday that electric or hybrid cars represented half of new registrations in the country so far this year. Sales of electric cars accounted for 17.6 percent of new vehicle registrations in January and hybrid cars accounted for 33.8 percent, for a combined 51.4 percent, according to figures from the Road Traffic Information Council (OVF). In February, those proportions fell slightly but remained high at 15.8 percent and 32 percent, respectively. While cars with combustion engines are heavily taxed, electric vehicles are exempt from almost all taxes. Their owners also benefit from numerous advantages such as free access to toll roads, ferries and parking at public car parks, as well as the possibility of driving in bus lanes.

Comments

cars bad, buses good.

[Noah Haders]

i hate when cars are in bus-only lanes. The purpose of the lanes is to allow buses to bypass traffic. it doesn't help when its' so clogged by cars that the lane moves at the same speed as the general purpose lane. thanks a lot, cars!

Re:cars bad, buses good.

[fiannaFailMan]

i hate when cars are in bus-only lanes. The purpose of the lanes is to allow buses to bypass traffic. it doesn't help when its' so clogged by cars that the lane moves at the same speed as the general purpose lane. thanks a lot, cars!

The railway line through Silicon Valley was originally used to carry canned fruit to the port of San Francisco. Now it's used by commuters. It's okay for transport infrastructure to be used for different purposes when the circumstances change.

Re:cars bad, buses good.

[LostMyBeaver]

Noah,

The purpose of letting electric cars drive in the bus lane is because electric cars had such limited range that it solved a few issues to have electric cars in that late.
  - If the car died due to lack of charge, it was closer to where it could be pushed off the road.
  - Sitting in stop and go traffic was devastating to battery life, so people couldn't get to or from work on a charge
Basically, it made electric cars a practical option before the technology came up to speed.

This is 2017 where even a Twizzy gets nearly 100km on a charge. Teslas get 500km and BMW i3 gets 300km, etc...

In 2017, electric cars in the bus lane are actually far too plentiful. They're using the lane not as a means of maintaining their battery, but they're using it as an incentive to skip queues. On E18 on the east side of Oslo, traffic is completely stopped for non-electric cars except during 07:00-09:00 each morning because electric cars are claiming right of way at the front of the queue to merge at the bottleneck. Anyone sitting in traffic before 07:00 there will move at 2-3km/hr. Then 07:00 comes around and traffic is back to about 50km/hr. This is because the opportunists are no longer allowed to clog the bottleneck. Let me also say that the mentality of these drivers often is "screw the zipper effect. I have electric and am coming from the right. I have the right of way." and they force their ways in.

I have a BMW i3 in Oslo and I have never driven in the bus lane since I've never been near a bus lane when my charge is too low. Other electrics drive past me and some drivers slow down and glare at me because they think I'm screwing up the system for them.

They should have a new rule which allows city car electrics with a documented range of 70km or less to use the bus lane. This will promote more companies to use small city electrics for courier and food deliveries. Then all other electrics should be treated as normal cars. And they should ban Tesla from traffic during rush hour since Tesla drivers are the asshole types who traded in their Audi's just to take advantage of the bus lane and screw everything up for everyone else.

Remember... the bus lane rule is there because
  "You're electric car is a piece of shit that can't even drive you to work.".
  It's basically a handicap lane for handicapped cars.
  We don't want to be stuck behind your dumb ass because you bought a car that sucks that bad.

It's not a right
It's not a reward
It's not a bonus
It is not an incentive.

It was there because we wanted to build infrastructure to support electric cars even when they really sucked.

They don't suck anymore.

Ditch the rule.

My i3 which is really a piece of shit and couldn't hold a Toyota's (any model) jock strap is still good enough that there is absolutely no practical reason why it should be allowed in the bus lane.

Re:cars bad, buses good.

[serviscope_minor]

The purpose of bus lanes is to force people to use public transportation

More encourage rather than force.

by giving it an unfair advantages by forcing everyone to waste resources so that it can monopolize them, which in turn actually creates traffic congestion.

In many big cities, the public transport networks shift more people than private cars do on a daily basis. If you make the public transport worse, more people will use cars instead and that will create far worse congestion.

Certainly at busy times in London, bus lanes gives a net increase in the throughput of people. The full buses at rush hour hold 90 people or so and you can get one or two a minute going past busy points. On a free running, busy road lane, you should get a single car every few seconds. It's obviously different outside rush hour, but that's the most congested time when these things matter most.

In other words, if you removed the bus lane, the net throughput of people would be worse, which means the congestion would go up.

With enough tax incentives...

[Kjella]

Norway's got one of the highest car taxes in the world, particularly on heavy, polluting, big engine cars. A base model Ford Mustang will cost you $83k. Make that $136k if you want the V8. When you can buy a Tesla at same price as in the US with no VAT, no car taxes it'll be popular. And hybrids get enough tax breaks to offset most the cost difference, basically you can get one you can plug in and charge for near free at roughly the same price as the gas guzzler only version but with reduced luggage space. And we're not doing it to bring in taxes, we have oil and are rich. We have some kind of eco-Messiah complex thinking what the five million people in Norway do will save the world. I swear, living here sometimes feels like a TV show and you're just waiting for someone to jump out and say you're on hidden camera. Except you're not and we keep coming back for more.

Re:With enough tax incentives...

[UnknowingFool]

Not just tax incentives though. Gas per gallon in Norway right now is about $7. The main reason is that Norway does not import oil and uses its own reserves. Thus oil is limited. So another reason why gasoline or diesel cars are not desirable in Norway

Ridiculous taxes and exemptions will do that

[Crashmarik]

Car Taxes
http://www.expatarrivals.com/n...

Exemptions for electrics

https://electrek.co/2016/11/09...

Re:Tax Breaks for the Wealthy

[kamapuaa]

I suppose they could really help the working man by getting rid of environmental controls altogether. It's a balance, and personally I'm glad the US didn't go the way of Europe and encourage cheap, high-polluting diesel cars.

Re:Tax Breaks for the Wealthy

[bluefoxlucid]

I just bought a 2013 Chevrolet Volt for $11,000 plus fees ($12,295 total). The car is in excellent condition, even at 68,000 miles; the internal combustion engine has been run way more than necessary, with only 3% of its lifetime drive being on battery.

The 2013 Volt is an excellent car. The battery lasts about 38 miles, and I have a 13 mile commute; I use 66% of the battery both ways. The generation-2 Volt has a 53 mile all-electric range; 90% of commutes are below 60 miles, and 68% are below 15 miles, so the 2016 and later Chevrolet Volt runs all-electric nearly 100% of the time for over 90% of daily commuters, and the 2015 and earlier Volt runs all-electric nearly 100% of the time for over 75% of daily commuters.

The 2013 Chevrolet Volt had an MSRP of $41,000. I got mine for $11,000. The car was bought by my dealer in October, 2016.

Rich people's cars go out the door in 3 years for newer, fancier cars. Look at the Chevrolet Volt battery and structural support members, and compare that to the Chevrolet Bolt battery and its base panel. By re-enginering the Chevy Volt battery base panel to be a stressed member battery pack, like the Bolt, you could get another 50-75 miles of range--raising the 58 mile range of the Generation 2 Volt to a 108 or 133 mile range without crowding out the existing supports. This would add several thousand dollars to the cost, although newer technology (including more automation in factories) will bring that down.

The end result: a PHEV with 108+ miles of all-electric range and a total 475+ miles of combined range, with an electric recharge time (at 3.3kW, 240V at 13.75A) of under 8 hours (under 4 hours with a 6.6kW circuit--240V on a 30A circuit). Recharge rate at 3.3kW is 14.5 miles per each hour of charging; if the charge circuit were re-specced to 6.6kW for this hypothetical vehicle, it would recharge 29 miles of range per each hour--nearly the full range of the Generation 1 Volt.

Note that upgrading my home electrical to add a 40 amp, 240V charging station (9.6kW) for the Volt and future EVs will cost me under $1,000. Using a Level 1 charger plugged into a normal 15-amp receptacle (no electrical upgrade) restores 4 miles per hour of charge, making an overnight charge (8pm to 8am) a 48-mile top-off. The Chevrolet Volt includes such a charger.

So rich people are eating the cost of these new, high-end cars (okay, GM made a non-shitty vehicle; I'm impressed); and non-rich people are purchasing them for around $10k-$15k (I actually saw a 2015 Volt with under 5,000 miles for $16k! They're over $30k MSRP!). Essentially, some rich guy bought me a $30,000 car, and I bought the other $11,000. I got my last car (a 2004 Mazda 3) for $14,000.

The total pollution produced by a Chevy Volt is lower than the total pollution produced by a Toyota Prius, including its total manufacture and electrical refueling. My utility offers me EV charging rates with 3.8 cents distribution, plus taxes, plus 20 cents per kWh peak electrical rate and 9.3 cents per kWh off-peak; I currently pay 8.79 cents per kWh at all times (no off-peak advantage) to an electrical supplier who ensures generation of 100% solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal for every kWh I consume, which is less than the off-peak rate. My total current electricity cost is 15 cents per kWh, versus EV rates (using 70% coal, 5% oil, and a lot of natural gas) of 15.51 cents per kWh.

Currently I'm driving on 100% clean energy. The Generation 1 Voltec platform, from 2011 vehicles, has seen regular lifecycles in excess of 90% electrical miles and 100,000 miles, including several samples exceeding

Re:Tax Breaks for the Wealthy

[OrangeTide]

People driving beaters in my home town don't have $11k, nor the credit to finance such a purchase. They buy cars for under $2k and drive them for 10-15 years.

Re:Honest Question:

[angel'o'sphere]

Ever heard about:
a) global warming?
b) golf stream?

Norway is not as cold as one would imagine. Considering that it is 2000km long from north to south there is a great difference between north and south, too.

"I won't buy an automobile until it can eat hay

[Brannon]

and be bred to create more automobiles." - random moron in 1910.

Re:Honest Question:

[Barsteward]

yes, they drop a little in performance but not drastically, gasoline cars also lose a little performance. http://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-re...

Re:Tax Breaks for the Wealthy

[OrangeTide]

Well, not lugging 2000 pounds of steel around does give walking certain advantages.

Re:Honest Question:

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought batteries for electric cars performed badly in cold weather. Wouldn't Norway be a place where you wouldn't want to use electric only vehicles?

It's not actually that cold in Norway, considering how far North it is. I live in Trondheim in the middle of the country and in January the average temperature was just above freezing. Some interior areas of the country are a lot colder but most of the population lives near the coast where it's not really that cold in the winter.

Re:Tax Breaks for the Wealthy

[serviscope_minor]

Strangely enough, walking to work is one of the least environmentally friendly forms of transportation. Even if you got all of your calories from sustainably farmed, vegetable based foods, humans are just abysmal when it comes to efficiency.

You are mistaken. One reason humans are bad at efficiency is we burn a LOT just to keep our body warm, our brain alive and our organs ticking over. That's actually where you burn the majority of your energy by quite a wide margin unless you're doing something like hiking to the South Pole. The thing is, you're going to be burning that whether you're walking or not. There's also the thing that walking doesn't emit PM10s, NOx or any other nasties. The food production might, but it's not done in the cities where lots of people are breathing it.

Re:Tax Breaks for the Wealthy

[Anonymous Coward]

You could try to move even further from work. That way you can make a 400 or 500 Km daily commute and reverse common sense even more.

Re:Tax Breaks for the Wealthy

[AmiMoJo]

You vastly underestimate the longevity of a Tesla battery pack. Say you drove at a constant 70 MPH (unrealistic) for 5000 hours, that would only be 350,000 miles. There are plenty of Tesla drivers with much more than 350k on the clock and well over 90% remaining capacity.

Standard lifetime for a battery is to 80% remaining capacity, which for a Tesla pack using Panasonic cells will be around 900,000 miles. In another few years someone will hit a million in a Model S.

Re:Tax Breaks for the Wealthy

[DarkVader]

It doesn't do anything of the sort. Virtually every house in the US has 240V available. Most houses have 200A service.

Sure, if you're plugging in to a 120V wall outlet with the charger that comes with the car, it's a bit slow (and it's actually what I do, it charges my Ford C-Max quite nicely overnight) but if I needed faster charging it would take me maybe a couple hours to pull a 240V circuit to a L2 EVSE, and it wouldn't be any harder for me to pull a 50A circuit than a 30A circuit.

Most days, the 15-20 miles of range I get on battery is enough. I'd like to have one of the new Volts, 53 miles would keep me running on electricity almost all the time, but the C-Max was only $10k.

Re:Tax Breaks for the Wealthy

[thegarbz]

People driving beaters in my home town don't have $11k, nor the credit to finance such a purchase. They buy cars for under $2k and drive them for 10-15 years.

Thanks for the edge case. When 70% of Americans drive electric vehicles we can start addressing those edge cases too.