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Electric cars make up 54% of cars sold in Norway in 2020

theguardian.com

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Re: Electric cars make up 54% of cars sold in Norway in 2020

#221

Post by lazyjones »

BucketsMcG wrote: post #167
CharlesW wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, amazing to see Tesla trending down to under 1%. That seems to be evidence that their first-mover advantage won't help them as EVs become common.

What's more likely to happen first: Tesla catches up on a century's knowledge and experience of car manufacturing, or the combined resources of the entire car industry catches up on a decade or so of technological advantage in batteries?

The former. Manufacturing cars is not arcane knowledge, Tesla is hiring former Daimler employees in Germany as we speak.

Also, Tesla's quality problems are wildly exaggerated to distract from their lead in battery and software technology. Look at VW's ineptitude at fixing ID.3 software...

Re: Electric cars make up 54% of cars sold in Norway in 2020

#222

Post by audunw »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #143
lldbg wrote: post #2

Sell oil, buy electric cars. Is this the definition of hypocrisy? At least it is better than the alternative, sell oil and buy fossile fuel cars. Edit: I would like to rephrase the last sentence as "At least it is better than _an_ alternative, which is to sell oil and buy fossile fuel cars." which is a fairer categorisation of the problem space and less consumerist.

I'm irritated by the downvotes you've received. It clearly _is_ hypocrisy.

> hy·poc·ri·sy (hĭ-pŏk′rĭ-sē) > 1. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness. > 2. An act or instance of such falseness.

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Hypocracy

It's clearly _not_ hypocrisy by any normal definition of the word.

I mean, first of all EVs isn't just about cutting CO2-emissions. Norway is very concerned about local pollution, and EVs is pretty superior there.

And Norway does not believe that they're the good guys when it comes to CO2 emissions, at all. There's a continuous debate about what to do about the oil/gas production though, and there's some pretty strong arguments that cutting oil/gas would do nothing or even be damaging to global CO2 emissions. Cutting production will easily be offset by other countries with worse emissions in their production chain. Cutting off gas to Germany will either push them back to coal or to Russian gas. And most of those other countries are not investing as much of their oil profits in renewables and EV tech. I'm not sure I agree with this line of though, but it's valid because it depends on knowledge of alternative futures that we just don't know.

I mean if you think it's hypocrisy you're free to do so, but it's not very productive. What action should Norway take to reduce the worlds CO2 emissions more than they are? The Norwegian green party wants to cut all oil/gas production by 2035. Is that enough, or should they have cut everything already?

Re: Electric cars make up 54% of cars sold in Norway in 2020

#223

Post by giantg2 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #205
giantg2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any suggestions for how to replace lost revenue that would support infrastructure like roads? In the US roads are mostly maintained by taxes on gas. I would think taxing tires might be a decent replacement, but I haven't seen much conversation on the issue.

> In the US roads are mostly maintained by taxes on gas. This is a common misconception. Most road funding comes from the Fed and state/local income and property taxes. Gasoline taxes exist but do not comprise the majority of funding. It's important to emphasize this because I pay a LOT in taxes but don't even so much as own a car, so I'm paying way more than my fair share for road upkeep. The solution would be simpl…

I never said it was a sole source, but it is a large source (I thought the largest source). Do you have the breakdown of funding sources?

Most of your property tax (depending on state) is going to schools, not roads. For example, my school tax is about $3700 per year, while county tax is about $500 and local income tax is maybe $500. The county and local taxes support courts, parks, police, fire, public transport, etc. Yes, some does go to road maintenance, especially projects like bike lane and crosswalk programs, but that is relatively little. I pay about $400 per year in gas taxes, $90 in registration, and $90-120 in tolls each year (pre covid). Federal road money comes from a federal gas tax (not sure if there are other sources added since that was a big issue a decade ago).

Enforcement of the odometer reading might be tricky, especially at the state level for states without periodic inspections. It could work though. The reason I mentioned tires is because they are a consumable part and have treadwear ratings for how long they should last. It would be self-enforcing, to a degree, at the consumer level. Enforcement would be at the manufacturer or distributor level to collect the tax.

Re: Electric cars make up 54% of cars sold in Norway in 2020

#224

Post by Hypx »

throwaway-8c93 wrote: post #193
epistasis wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As awful as Tesla is, all the other car manufacturing companies are far far worse. Even with massive government incentives, even with their massive war chests, even with their massive production capacity, even with their access to capital markets for big investments, even then , they didn't make the smart move and had to be shown the path by an annoying megalomaniac who gets way too much attention. So yes, I regret g…

The automakers' behavior makes much more sense once you assume they did their homework, and came out with the same conclusion as everyone else: that the future of personal transport is in battery electric vehicles, and that future implies lower service revenue, slower upgrade cycle, fewer possibilities for brand differentiation, obsolescence of their patent portfolio and large layoffs. Based on that conclusion, they…

I would insist that the future is really fuel cell cars. Battery electric will be a short-term transitional class of vehicle. Most car companies need to plan for the real future pretty soon now.

Re: Electric cars make up 54% of cars sold in Norway in 2020

#225

Post by giantg2 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #88
giantg2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any suggestions for how to replace lost revenue that would support infrastructure like roads? In the US roads are mostly maintained by taxes on gas. I would think taxing tires might be a decent replacement, but I haven't seen much conversation on the issue.

>In the US roads are mostly maintained by taxes on gas. I would think taxing tires might be a decent replacement, but I haven't seen much conversation on the issue. Most of the conversation seems to be around taxing mileage or putting up toll roads which IMO are both crap solutions. Taxing mileage is, is highly regressive because less wealthy people drive tons more (they live farther out from the economic centers and…

I think that makes sense. I wonder if enough people see it that way and what sources of that general tax revenue would increase to offset the lost revenue from gas tax.

Re: Electric cars make up 54% of cars sold in Norway in 2020

#226

Post by Hypx »

CydeWeys wrote: post #206
throwaway-8c93 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The automakers' behavior makes much more sense once you assume they did their homework, and came out with the same conclusion as everyone else: that the future of personal transport is in battery electric vehicles, and that future implies lower service revenue, slower upgrade cycle, fewer possibilities for brand differentiation, obsolescence of their patent portfolio and large layoffs. Based on that conclusion, they…

That strategy was only the best if you assumed someone like a Tesla wouldn't come along. However, a Tesla did come along, and as a result, Tesla now controls an ungodly fraction of the total worldwide automaker value. Basically, it was a bad strategy, as it was practically inevitable that at some point someone would "defect" and do BEVs. Not only did the automakers use a bad strategy, but they failed to pivot from th…

The problem is that Tesla is also another Kodak. Companies need to start investing in fuel cell technology or face another disruption.

The future might be companies like Hyundai or Toyota, who are investing in "all-of-the-above" technologies rather than betting everything on one idea.

Re: Electric cars make up 54% of cars sold in Norway in 2020

#227

Post by CogitoCogito »

audunw wrote: post #222
CogitoCogito wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm irritated by the downvotes you've received. It clearly _is_ hypocrisy.

> hy·poc·ri·sy (hĭ-pŏk′rĭ-sē) > 1. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness. > 2. An act or instance of such falseness. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Hypocracy It's clearly _not_ hypocrisy by any normal definition of the word. I mean, first of all EVs isn't just about cutting CO2-emissions. Norway is very concerned about local pollution, and EVs is pret…

> It's clearly _not_ hypocrisy by any normal definition of the word.

Okay sure if you define their goals for EVs simply as decreasing _local_ pollution, then you're right it's not hypocritical. Though in that case I would instead refer to it as extremely selfish, since they are using the proceeds from their exportation of pollution to decrease their own local pollution. Honestly I'm not really sure which perspective I find worse.

> There's a continuous debate...

Given you clearly don't strongly agree with what you wrote, I won't attack you on it. I'll simply point out that those arguments are really no different than all the other self-serving arguments people use to post facto rationalize their actions. If them ridiculous. They remind me of the arguments I sometimes hear from fellow Swedes saying that Sweden's large profits from arms exports aren't bad since they'd be sold by someone else anyway. Convenient how easily such reasoning can be used to ignore one's culpability.

> I mean if you think it's hypocrisy you're free to do so, but it's not very productive. What action should Norway take to reduce the worlds CO2 emissions more than they are? The Norwegian green party wants to cut all oil/gas production by 2035. Is that enough, or should they have cut everything already?

If this is a serious question, then I'll answer it. They should stop being hypocrites. That is they should either stop their exports immediately or they should come to terms with the fact that they are making the world a worse place. You might want to get rid of Solberg as a first step:

https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/7335804

"Norge är ett av världens rikaste länder, mycket tack vare sin olja. Men man tar inget klimatansvar för den olja som exporteras.

Det säger Norges statsminister Erna Solberg i Ekots lördagsintervju idag. Enligt henne är det den som köper oljan som har ansvaret för utsläppen. Och då menar hon bland annat Sverige."

Total bullshit. I mean I agree that Swedes need to take responsibility for their actions (Sweden is probably just as full of hypocrites as Norway), but Norway is selling their oil knowing very well the result. Of course they are responsible. They are selling it because they want money. There's nothing noble about it.

Re: Electric cars make up 54% of cars sold in Norway in 2020

#228

Post by gamblor956 »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #202
gamblor956 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like how people are scared to buy Teslas because the car might drive them into a truck or center divider and kill them...

No it isn't. The ID.3 problems are real, VW are working on software updates to fix the problems and have emailed the owners to provide instructions for work arounds.

You do know that multiple people have actually died from Teslas driving themselves into trucks and center dividers?

The worst part with the most recent center-divider crash is that it was an regression following an OTA update, demonstrating that OTA can cause just as much harm as good.

Re: Electric cars make up 54% of cars sold in Norway in 2020

#229

Post by gamblor956 »

kjksf wrote: post #214
gamblor956 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leafs and Bolts were sold out (or leased out) almost everywhere they were available before the Model 3 was released. The problem was that they never made enough of them because their respective manufacturers didn't believe the market was very large, largely because battery technology when they were first released simply wasn't as good as it is now.

US sales of Nissan Leaf in 2016 was 14k. In 2019 it was 12k. If Nissan Leaf was sold out in U.S. it's only because Nissan decided not to make enough of them. Or they made exactly the very small amount that people were willing to buy. Bolt was even worse. They did 23k in 2017 and dropped to 16k in 2019. GM dealers were so desperate to get rid of them that at some point they offered up to $10k cash rebate. At that desp…

Like I said... The problem was that they never made enough of them because they didn't believe the market existed.

Note that Tesla is also losing money on the Model 3 (and indeed, all models of Teslas) when using the same accounting practices as other automakers. Tesla only has high margins when using non-standard accounting.

Re: Electric cars make up 54% of cars sold in Norway in 2020

#230

Post by gamblor956 »

cptskippy wrote: post #217
gamblor956 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leafs and Bolts were sold out (or leased out) almost everywhere they were available before the Model 3 was released. The problem was that they never made enough of them because their respective manufacturers didn't believe the market was very large, largely because battery technology when they were first released simply wasn't as good as it is now.

> Leafs and Bolts were sold out (or leased out) almost everywhere they were available before the Model 3 was released. That's not true, people were leasing Leafs for tax credits the dumping them as soon as the lease expired. There was a glut of off lease Leafs on the market as early as 2017. I picked up a 2015 Leaf with 15k miles on it for ~$14k off lease in 2017 before the Model 3 went into production. Nissan starte…

There was intense demand for the Leaf in California. The waiting list was a year long through 2016, and in LA at least there was still a waiting list well into 2017. However, Nissan only ever made a few thousand Leafs a year and only made them available in select markets.

By comparison, the Model 3 went into production in 2017 and they built the 500,000th in March of 2020.

BMW, VW, Toyota, and Ford have all launched new models in significantly greater numbers over shorter timeframes and with fewer employees than Tesla. The Passat, for example, went from 50,000 cars made/year (at the Chattanooga factory) to 250,000 cars made/year in just over a year, with 1/5 the employees of the Tesla line, minimal rework required...and here's the real kicker: while making an actual profit per car under standard accounting practices (not Tesla's imaginary profit per car that leaves out costs the other automakers include in unit economics).

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