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Norway: 37% of new vehicles sold in January were electric

electrek.co

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Re: Norway: 37% of new vehicles sold in January were electric

#81
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Used Renault Zoe can be bought for well under 10k EUR. In five years, replace the battery for an extra ~5K EUR (you probably won't need to, my EV battery is 4+ years old with 50k miles on it and still works great, but we'll include it in the cost just to calm your fears) Even including a brand new battery, total cost is still well below your 15K EUR max budget, using real-world numbers you can actually purchase wit…

I was talking about prices of new cars, for 4,000 euros I bought a pretty good 7-year old ICE hatchback which does its job pretty well. I saw that Zoe is priced at around 23,000 euros new, which for a mini-car is really expensive (if you're not a SV engineer, that is)

Well, sure, a 7 year old used car costs less than a 3 year old one does.

I'm not sure that's a fair comparison though. a Nissan LEAF or Renault Zoe will probably end up around your 4k euro price when they get to be 7 years old too.

My point is that if you want an affordable EV option, they exist. You don't have to be an engineer to afford an electric car anymore, they've become reasonably cheap, and prices seem to slowly be dropping every year

Re: Norway: 37% of new vehicles sold in January were electric

#82
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow these taxes sound out of this world (in my home country Poland, it's 3% or 17%, depending on the engine size). Hasn't anyone attempted to go around it by finding someone in say Germany to register the car as a first owner and then immediately purchasing the car (as a used car now) from him?

Used car imports also get taxed by the same percentage. And you can't cheat, because they decide the value of the car, not your receipt.

What limitations are there for just using a German registered car?

That's one of the main arguments that is being brought up here in Estonia when the socialists try to create a car registration tax. The opponents claim that people will just go a bit south to Latvia and register their car there, and then just drive around with a Latvian registration. There aren't any restrictions that prohibit this.

Similar behavior exists with alcohol. The Finnish are especially well known for their alcohol-tourism into Estonia. They come here during weekends and buy multiple crates worth of alcohol and go back. Two-way ferry ticket from Helsinki to Tallinn can cost as little as 10 € during sales, so economy-wise it can be cheaper even if you just want a 6-pack of beer. The funny thing is that as years have passed and Estonian alcohol tax has risen, we're now in a situation where southern-Estonians drive to Latvia to get their alcohol. That's also why the car registration point is so clear to us, because we're already seeing it with consumables where you have to make regular trips instead of a single one.

Re: Norway: 37% of new vehicles sold in January were electric

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those skeptical there could be such a big drop, useful background is that the Danish registration tax for new vehicles is 150% of the purchase price (with roughly the first €10k exempted). Previously it was 180% of the purchase price above €10k, but electric cars were exempted. An agreement was reached among several parties in 2015 to lower the overall rate from 180% to 150%, but to phase out the electric-car exe…

Wow these taxes sound out of this world (in my home country Poland, it's 3% or 17%, depending on the engine size). Hasn't anyone attempted to go around it by finding someone in say Germany to register the car as a first owner and then immediately purchasing the car (as a used car now) from him?

[deleted]

Re: Norway: 37% of new vehicles sold in January were electric

#84
post #82
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Used car imports also get taxed by the same percentage. And you can't cheat, because they decide the value of the car, not your receipt.

What limitations are there for just using a German registered car? That's one of the main arguments that is being brought up here in Estonia when the socialists try to create a car registration tax. The opponents claim that people will just go a bit south to Latvia and register their car there, and then just drive around with a Latvian registration. There aren't any restrictions that prohibit this. Similar behavior e…

You can drive a German-registered car as a tourist who isn't resident in Denmark, but if you move to Denmark and become a resident (or already were resident), you must register the car in Denmark within 30 days of bringing it into the country [1].

But yes, some amount of this happens. The easiest case to get away with it is probably if you are actually from another EU country, and just keep it registered in your home country at a relative's address, and travel back occasionally to keep your license, insurance, and registration up to date. If you're Danish and have no foreign address, it would be more complicated to get it sorted out, especially with insurance, but I'm sure there are people who do it. Police attempt to crack down on it by looking for foreign-registered cars that seem to be parked too regularly in the same residential area (e.g. in front of a block of flats in Copenhagen). That's not illegal per se, since you might be a longer-term visitor, but they investigate these cases and catch some number each year.

Besides foreign-registered vehicles, the other most common evasion mechanism is probably agriculturally registered vehicles (which are exempt from tax). Hard to do if you have no connection to a farm at all, but in families where some of the family are genuinely farmers, the rest of the family who aren't will in some cases end up with all their vehicles registered at the farm.

[1] https://www.skat.dk/SKAT.aspx?oId=2068721

Re: Norway: 37% of new vehicles sold in January were electric

#85
post #3

Expect the numbers to drop right back down again in a few years. A major reason for people owning a EV, a law that was introduced back when Thinks were the big deal EV to have (yeah, right) that allowed EVs to use the bus lanes and not pay a toll, have been repealed. Note that it was only when Tesla made the EV comparable to a sportscar that it picked up in Norway. And that was because now the rich of the nation coul…

I bought a used Nissan Leaf last month. No way I am EVER buying another non-electric car.

It's quiet.

It's got surprising torque for an economy car.

It's got a lot of room for a compact car. I'm 6'5" and gave plenty of head room, legroom, and vertical field of view.

Have not been to a gas station in 5 weeks.

Re: Norway: 37% of new vehicles sold in January were electric

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a suspicion the US is way too far gone to try that - the adversarial model (the societal idea of "people vs the Government", rather than the Government being a representative of the people) is not going away any time soon.

It's easy to see government as representative of the people when you live in a small country, or if you're thinking about your local government. When a government has 300 million+ people to represent, it needs to have very limited responsibilities and powers, because the common interests of so many people are very limited. That is (cargo culting political attitudes aside) largely why the American relationship with th…

When a government has 300 million+ people to represent, it needs to have very limited responsibilities and powers, because the common interests of so many people are very limited.

I'm not sure I agree with that. The common interests of people are basically the same - education, health, housing ...

There are over 80 million people in Germany. Not in the same league as the US, but still a huge country. And I don't think (obviously this is not data) that people here feel the government don't work for their interests. In a very small country like Ireland (where I'm actually from) the government seem to me to be much less 'representative' of the people, due to cronyism and corruption (see current Irish gov scandal expected to bring down the government within weeks - http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-the-maurice...)

Re: Norway: 37% of new vehicles sold in January were electric

#87
post #73

Can someone provide data showing how electric cars reduce emissions overall? Having something like this ready would help when discussing with people who are not sure of the benefits of EVs ("it still uses energy right?").

I haven't looked up the figures for you, but a lot of it is based on future decarbonisation of the electricity grid. Depends on which country you live in of course, but right now in most countries the carbon factors for petrol or diesel will be lower than those for electricity. Norway is probably an exception to this: it has lots of wind, lots of rivers, and lots of money.

[deleted]

Re: Norway: 37% of new vehicles sold in January were electric

#88
post #3

Expect the numbers to drop right back down again in a few years. A major reason for people owning a EV, a law that was introduced back when Thinks were the big deal EV to have (yeah, right) that allowed EVs to use the bus lanes and not pay a toll, have been repealed. Note that it was only when Tesla made the EV comparable to a sportscar that it picked up in Norway. And that was because now the rich of the nation coul…

Tesla only sold 2 vehicles in Denmark in 2016, dropping from 2800 sold in 2015. This was after the Danish government added the regular registration tax to electric vehicles. That supports the commentators point of view. https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=da&tl=en&u=h...

You'd expect that the impending new tax pulled a bunch of otherwise 2016 purchases into 2015, but still... yikes!

Re: Norway: 37% of new vehicles sold in January were electric

#89
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. Growth may slow down, but why in the world would you expect numbers to drop? Do you consider that internal combustion stuff to somehow have advantages over contemporary technologies?

ICE vehicles are still considerably cheaper compared to EV. Show me a 10,000-15,000 euro electric hatchback that I'd be able to drive for 10+ years without having to purchase expensive batteries every 4-5 years and I'd buy it.

This trope of having to replace EV batteries every 5 years is so prevalent, and so wrong, that I'm beginning to be suspicious as to its use.

Re: Norway: 37% of new vehicles sold in January were electric

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that Oslo, like all the Nordics, gets more sun in the summer when it's less necessary, and practically none in the winter when energy is needed. Norway has so much hydroelectric capacity that it doesn't matter, though.

> Norway has so much hydroelectric capacity that it doesn't matter, though. We have substantial DC interconnects to countries that have little or no hydro so our prices are no not much different from the rest of Northern Europe. Any excess solar would be sold to Europe just like excess hydro is now. It could also be used to drive pumped storage to ensure that the reservoirs are full for the winter.

Sure, but it tends to be summer in Germany at the same time there's summer in Norway. Pumped storage is a nice thing when the nature allows it, and Norway has plenty of opportunity there.
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