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Almost a Third of New Cars Sold In Norway Last Year Were Pure Electric (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Almost a third of new cars sold in Norway last year were pure electric, a new world record as the country strives to end sales of fossil-fueled vehicles by 2025. In a bid to cut carbon emissions and air pollution, Norway exempts battery-driven cars from most taxes and offers benefits such as free parking and charging points to hasten a shift from diesel and petrol engines. The independent Norwegian Road Federation (NRF) said on Wednesday that electric cars rose to 31.2 percent of all sales last year, from 20.8 percent in 2017 and just 5.5 percent in 2013, while sales of petrol and diesel cars plunged. The sales figures consolidate Norway's global lead in electric car sales per capita, part of an attempt by Western Europe's biggest producer of oil and gas to transform to a greener economy. For comparison, electric cars had a 2.2 percent share in China in 2017 and 1.2 percent in the United States, according to IEA data.
part of an attempt by Western Europe's biggest producer of oil and gas
The best drug dealers know never to use the stuff they sell. :-)
That said, the fact that so many people in Norway can go electric shows the cars are pretty much viable anywhere in large numbers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The regular folks don't see any of that money and until recently, the government wasn't even spending any of it. The vast majority of what they take in for any given year ends up getting banked away into an investment fund (earning even more money) and as a result they've got a considerable nest egg.
The reason for this is that Norway has all kinds of taxes, fees, etc. related to cars, almost all of which have been waved or heavily reduced for electric vehicles. It isn't that it's rich people who can afford shiny new electric cars are suddenly buying them, it's that Norway has made cars hideously expensive for most people, but have removed those expenses if you buy an electric car. I don't know if they changed it at all, but previously they had no VAT on electric vehicles among other more environmentally friendly cars. That's a huge deal.
The lesson is that if you don't tax the ever living hell out of something, people are more likely to buy that thing than the competing alternatives.
The fastest selling EV in Norway is the Leaf.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Yep, huge government subsidies is the reason.
All in the name of greenwashing of course.
After all, they are the 3rd largest exporter of natural gas in the world - or perhaps they think that is being used to make magical pixie rainbows?
Wait for the gov to go full East Germany with an approved list of electric cars for the poor people who could only afford regular cars.
What cant be mandated with tax will be regulated with gov approval on what can drive on the gov roads.
Nordic central planning at its best.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The reason is tax-breaks, no tolls, free parking, no import/purchase tax, no road tax, driving in bus lanes. Saving the environment isn't one of those reasons.
Saving the environment is the reason for the tax breaks, etc.
The fastest selling EV there is the Jaguar iPace.
Trump, is that you?
From TFA:
I can't find whole-year figures that include December, but up through November the Jaguar iPace was #20. The top three were the Leaf, the VW e-Golf and the BMW i3.
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The fastest selling EV there is the Jaguar iPace.
It's still only preorders. Top selling cars in Norway 2018:
1. Nissan Leaf 8.3%
2. Volkswagen Golf 6.7%
3. BMW i3 3.8%
4. Tesla Model X 3.4%
5. Mitsubishi Outlander 2.9%
6. Toyota Yaris 2.6%
7. Volvo XC60 2.5%
8. Tesla Model S 2.5%
9. Toyota Rav4 2.5%
10. Renault Zoe 2.1%
They don't break the Golf down between the regular one and e-Golf, but that and the Leaf are the big commuter cars. The Leaf starts at $32k, the iPace will start at $68k so for a very different market. Other than that I fully agree it's only because of government sponsorship. But hey, we're voting in "green" politicians (it's either blue-green or red-green, at the moment blue-green) so we get what we vote for. Though it should also be said we have lots of hydro and wind power - not so much solar - so it makes sense to use electricity at home and export the oil and gas. That way we can pretend to be environmentally friendly, as long as the emissions happen somewhere else.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The regular folks don't see any of that money and until recently, the government wasn't even spending any of it. The vast majority of what they take in for any given year ends up getting banked away into an investment fund (earning even more money) and as a result they've got a considerable nest egg.
That's very much not true, up until recently the oil income was greater than the deficit meaning we were both saving compound interest and adding fresh money but without any oil income we'd have a big deficit. Last year we had 183 bNOK in net oil income, 214 bNOK in return on our oil fund and had a 255 bNOK deficit without the oil. So the result is our fund grew by 140 bNOK, but almost 20% of our 1253 bNOK budget came from oil. If the oil industry completely shut down today we'd already be losing money despite the nest egg. And they do expect the workforce to non-workforce balance to get worse...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It actually is relevant because if you live in a backwards shithole like West Virginia or Utah that gets a lot of coal power, it makes less sense because it is way more expensive and dirtier then the worst car.
Actually, coal-powered EVs are cheaper to power and cleaner than the best ICEVs, even hybrids. Coal is generally dirtier than gasoline or diesel, but the dramatically higher efficiencies available in a large, high-temperature power plant vs a small, low-temperature engine more than make up the difference.
I live in Utah, BTW. And drive an EV. Last month I drove 2024 miles, and spent $24.09 on charging (I have a meter on my home EV charger, which is the only place I charge). If I were driving a gasoline car that gets 35 mpg, at $2.50 per gallon that would cost me $142.50 in fuel. Tell me again which is more expensive?
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For a typical EV, that's not just a $7500 savings on registration, but a 25% savings on VAT. For an e-Golf that is an $8,000 savings. Combined, that's about half the price of a gas-powered Golf. Add in no road taxes ($350 per year), no tolls (another $2000 per year), and free parking (if you drove to work 5 days a week - at $30 per day parking - that's $7500 per year in parking fees) and after 2 years the Government has basically given you the cost of the petrol-based Golf. The reason people buy EVs in Norway? Because their high taxes are used to pay them to drive EVs.
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The EU gets a lot more oil from the Middle East than the US. In fact, our biggest supplier is Iraq, at around 6% of our supplies. We're in the Middle East mainly to provide stability and access to oil for our allies in the EU and Asia - not for our own use.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Canada is a wee bit bigger than Norway, however. We have a shitload of empty space an EV needs to take you through in a way that is dependable because getting stuck in one of those empty spaces when it is -30C can be a bitch. Well, people have died. You think there is cellphone coverage everywhere? Think again. Welcome to Canada.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Many Canadians drive well into the wilderness to go to the cottage or go camping. A lot of times that is in the winter. There are a lot of road trips to national parks, etc.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Your numbers are bullshit swillden.
Electric cars get about 30 kWh/100miles. 2024 miles takes about 600 kWh. $24.09 for 600 kWh = $0.04 kWh, when the average price for electricity in America is ~$0.10/kWh You're paying at least $50/month charging your electric car.
I pay $0.034/kWh to charge my cars. I'm on a time-of-use plan which charges $0.034/kWh off-peak and $0.34/kWh on-peak. My chargers (I have two, for two cars) are configured to charge only during off-peak times.
As an aside, switching to the time-of-use plan has saved me a lot on AC, too. I configure my smart thermostat to cool the house to 68F an hour before peak starts (3 PM) and then change the set point to 78F. The AC rarely runs again before 8PM when peak ends. This has reduced my cooling bills by about 30%.
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