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Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#61

Post by ZeroGravitas »

usrusr wrote: post #48
lqdc13 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

incentives + social pressure to make gas car owners feel guilty. One of the top reasons from the interview was "clean consciousness". This, I think, is partially because oil is the main industry in the country so they collectively feel more guilty than neighboring Sweden and Finland.

> "clean consciousness" Which just happens to work so much better when your electricity is not provided by coal plants...

As you say, it's better if you don't rely on coal for electricity production, but it's important to note, because there's lots of propaganda doing its best to suggest otherwise, that it's still a good idea if you're using coal.

Using coal is of course a ridiculous thing to do, and should be phased out immediately, but still, electric cars make sense even in that horrible scenario.

Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#62

Post by kwhitefoot »

bogomipz wrote: post #46
igravious wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The following incentives from the article seem key. - No purchase taxes - Exemption from 25% VAT on purchase - Low annual road tax - No charges on toll roads or ferries - Free municipal parking - Access to bus lanes - 50% reduction in company car tax - No VAT on leasing

Yet another story on how exemplary Norway is. Yet the reason Norway is able to provide these incentives is because they made a fortune selling oil. I'm conflicted on these Norway stories because while I applaud all of these efforts, the reality is that they are largely possible only because of oil money.

What makes you think that the oil has anything to do with it?

Really the connection between electric cars and oil is the long term thinking that both require, the kind of forward thinking that drove Norway to INVEST the tax income from the oil instead of SQUANDERING it as the UK did.

I lived the first 30 years of my life in the UK so I saw at first hand how it was done there and I've been in Norway now for another 30 years and this sort of thing is definitely handled better here (no it's not paradise but there seem to be fewer people trying to turn it into hell).

Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#63

Post by ZeroGravitas »

dghughes wrote: post #60
igravious wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The following incentives from the article seem key. - No purchase taxes - Exemption from 25% VAT on purchase - Low annual road tax - No charges on toll roads or ferries - Free municipal parking - Access to bus lanes - 50% reduction in company car tax - No VAT on leasing

If there was a car that ran on tears of children and had 9 tax breaks you know they'd go for that one.

That's a very poetic way to describe the war-subsidized SUVs that many Americans drive.

Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#64

Post by kwhitefoot »

reitanqild wrote: post #28
unixhero wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's beautiful when you don't have to live it.

I live here and it is still beautiful. From May to early September it almost isn't dark at night and depending on where in the country you live it sometimes seems like living in a postcard ;-) (FTR, Norway is long, if you turned it upside down it would stretch far into Italy they say, driving from my place to the artic circle would be about 17 hours non-stop and then you still have a full working day left to drive to…

> I live here and it is still beautiful

Me too. Never been further north than Steinkjer though.

Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#65

Post by loeg »

Infernal wrote: post #8
beloch wrote: post #4

I wonder how well EV's cope with arctic conditions. In areas near the ocean temperatures generally don't get too extreme (e.g. Anchorage), but inland they can easily get into ranges that must be challenging for batteries to cope with.

Anecdotal, but I was speaking with a friend from Norway about 18 months ago, and he mentioned how you see Teslas everywhere because they are heavily subsidized and gas is ridiculously expensive. However, he said everyone also has a winter car, a Subaru or similar, because the electric range is so severely limited by the cold.

> However, he said everyone also has a winter car, a Subaru or similar, because the electric range is so severely limited by the cold.

Article seems to suggest otherwise — population of 5 million, but only 3 million cars on the road.

Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#66

Post by fulafel »

msh wrote: post #45
larschdk wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that this model is sustainable. In Denmark, the tax exemption on electric vehicles is now being phased out because it got too popular and the resulting decrease in tax revenue would be to heavy.

Eh no. It got phased out because we got a government who don't believe in subsidising things that are good for the environment. One of the support parties don't even believe that global warming is caused by human activity.

Cars are not good for the environment. Lifetime co2 footprint of electric cars are in the same ballpark as efficient petrol cars.

Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#67

Post by msh »

fulafel wrote: post #66
msh wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh no. It got phased out because we got a government who don't believe in subsidising things that are good for the environment. One of the support parties don't even believe that global warming is caused by human activity.

Cars are not good for the environment. Lifetime co2 footprint of electric cars are in the same ballpark as efficient petrol cars.

Depends a lot on how the electricity is generated. If most electricity is generated by wind and solar very different from if it was generated by coal.

Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#68

Post by _0w8t »

sandworm101 wrote: post #47
_0w8t wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are prototypes of electric cars that use aluminum batteries [1] with energy density similar to that of gasoline. As technology improves, that can be a viable option for extreme cold conditions. [1] https://www.algemeiner.com/2014/06/17/israels-phinergy-tests...

> can be a viable option To win the northern market, without massive subsidies, electric cars need to be better than viable. They need to be better than gas car. In cold weather, that will require an order of magnitude increase in energy density. That's a couple decades off imho.

The energy density of aluminum batteries is higher than that of gasoline as they essentially burn aluminum turning it into Al2O3. The problem is that they are typically not rechargeable making them very costly presently. But with right infrastructure they can be better than gasoline - putting aluminum bars into the car should be even easier/faster than pumping gasoline. And, as with gasoline, they do not loose energy when left in cold.

Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#69

Post by danmaz74 »

Arnt wrote: post #59
danmaz74 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The oil age is ending in Norway. With "oil age" you mean the use of oil, or its production?

Largescale production. Sheik Yamani, who was petroleum minister in Saudi Arabia and IMO very clueful, once said that at some point, the oil production will slow to a trickle and prices rise to $1k/barrel. There'll still be mineral oil in various fields, he predicted, but at some point the ones that can be exploited cheaply will have been emptied.

Thx for the clarification.

Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#70

Post by Gibbon1 »

kalleboo wrote: post #32
Gibbon1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was also wondering about two things I've heard they have in northern climes called heated garages and engine block warmers[1]. I assume if one were charging a batter one could also divert some power to keep it warm. Lowered range aside one bonus of an electric car in cold climates is they'll probably start. [1] As a Californian these things frighten and confuse me.

> I assume if one were charging a batter one could also divert some power to keep it warm The Tesla is always diverting power to keep the batteries warm in the winter. In fact, if you park it outdoors in freezing temperatures, and plug it in to an American single-phase 120V outlet using a long extension cord, all the power will go to keeping the batteries from freezing and it won't charge at all.

Kinda conundrum there, you want good thermal coupling to the environment to shed heat when the batteries are charging. When the car is sitting in the cold you want the batteries insulated.
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