Norway Powers Ahead (Electrically): Over Half New Car Sales Now Electric or Hybrid (reuters.com)

Sales of electric and hybrid cars rose above half of new registrations in Norway in 2017, a record aided by generous subsidies that extended the country's lead in shifting from fossil-fuel engines, data showed on Wednesday. From a report: Pure electric cars and hybrids, which have both battery power and a diesel or petrol motor, accounted for 52 percent of all new car sales last year in Norway against 40 percent in 2016, the independent Norwegian Road Federation (OFV) said. "No one else is close" in terms of a national share of electric cars, OFV chief Oeyvind Solberg Thorsen said. "For the first time we have a fossil-fuel market share below 50 percent." Norway exempts new electric cars from almost all taxes and grants perks that can be worth thousands of dollars a year in terms of free or subsidized parking, re-charging and use of toll roads, ferries and tunnels.

Comments

Easy to do for Net Energy Exporting countries

[Anonymous Coward]

When your economy is based on extraction of fossil fuels, it's easy to put out public stories about your progressive energy policies and socialist government and laugh all the way to the bank as the checks from the oil wells are deposited.

Re:Easy to do for Net Energy Exporting countries

[mikael]

Norway is diversifying away from oil production and into renewable energies like offshore wind farms and hydroelectric power generation. The same technologies used to make oil rigs and power lines resistant to salt water corrosion can be used for offshore wind farms as well. With a population around 5 million and twice the land area of the UK, they can make fast economic changes. Plus they invested the revenue from the oil industry into a trust fund for the country.

Re:Easy to do for Net Energy Exporting countries

[Pinky's Brain]

Not really an example to the world though, the countries with massive oil based trade surpluses and huge amounts of hydro-potential are Norway and Norway.

This is just Norway investing in autarky, it's not really very interesting for the rest of the world. Unless you want to emigrate to Norway, which wouldn't be a bad idea.

Re:Not a free market decision

[DogDude]

The "free market" doesn't take into account externalities, such as pollution, so I'm glad that it's NOT a "free market" decision.

Re: Not a free market decision

[arcade]

The tax is not the same for all fossil cars. Where on earth do you have that from?

There's 3 parts of the "engangsavgift" (one time tax, paid as you buy it):

Weight:
351-1200kg: 26.51NOK/kg
1201-1400kg: 66.05NOK/kg
1401-1500kg: 206.41NOK/kg
> 1500kg: 240.06NOK/kg

CO2 (based on released grams per kilometer):
0-75g: 0NOK
76-100g: 914.7NOK/(g/km)
101-130g: 955.49NOK/(g/km)
131-200g: 2685.98NOK/(g/km)
> 200g: 3449.8NOK/(g/km)

NOX:
70.94NOK per mg/km

You add these together to find your engangsavgift.

The tax easily runs to more than 100.000USD for land rovers.

Re:Not a free market decision

[MightyMartian]

And how would pollution be accounted for, particularly when in most environments it actually takes time for pollutants to build up to a level where they start a problem? To my mind, a keen capitalist in such a "free market" would busy himself maximizing profits by ignoring pollution, and then walk away once the extent of the damage he had done became evident. And low and behold, that's often what has happened:

Sydney Tar Ponds

The coal and rust belts throughout the industrialized world are filled with these sort of toxic dumps, and guess who is on the hook in most cases for cleaning them up. That's right; the taxpayers within those jurisdictions.

In fact, that's not even the limit of how evil industries can be. The sugar and tobacco industries not only sold products highly dangerous to human health, but used junk science to hide the fact that they were killing people... for decades. And who was left responsible for decades worth of cancers, heart disease, diabetes, and so forth? That's right, the taxpayer (or in the US, in many cases, those who paid health insurance premiums). These companies became some of the most successful companies in the world, raking in vast profits, and letting governments and insurance companies deal with the carnage they were producing.

Sorry mate, your free market is an utter fantasy, a religion as daft as $cientology. Free markets cannot be unconstrained, and there must be regulation in place, because its government's job to look out for the people. I'm all onboard for capitalism and free enterprise, but the idea that some guy who makes thousands of times my hourly wage gives one single fuck about my wellbeing or that somehow he'll feel the need to moderate his company's actions for my best interests is, well, just plain absurd.