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Norway to hit 100% electric vehicle sales by early next year

drive.com.au

181–190 of 279 posts

Re: Norway to hit 100% electric vehicle sales by early next year

#181

20% of Norway's GDP comes from pumping oil out of the ground and selling it for others to burn. If they were really green that would stop.

As a Norwegian I totally agree with you. It is not just unethical, but stupid to invest so much in searching for new old fields. When demand for oil drops, Norway could have a Kodak moment.

As I see it, Kodak saw the writing on the wall pretty early, started R&D for digital camera ahead of the pack, and actually built the first working digital camera we know of. But it failed to put as much weight behind the new product line as it did on the money making ones.

That's basically a text book example of the "strategy tax", which isn't about stopping profit from existing products, but to let new concepts cannibalise legacy products.

In which way do you see Norway hitting the brakes on new technology and future trends to protect the oil business ?

Re: Norway to hit 100% electric vehicle sales by early next year

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Colorado at least it's not that high. $50 plus a small amount (today) that goes up over time to no more than $96 in the 2031-2032 fiscal year. It's CERTAINLY a lot less than you'd be paying in gas tax if you used your car an average amount. Taxes aren't punishment, anyway. Especially "road use taxes", which are, in this case, used to repair the roads you're driving on. [1] https://afdc.energy.gov/laws/11486

Road wear is disproportionately caused by heavy vehicles; one study estimated that "one 18-wheeler is equivalent to the impact of 9,600 cars". The gas tax is primarily a subsidy designed to support the trucking industry.

Or you can think of the trucking industry as subsidised. Trucks are used to haul goods to shops yes? Taxing them more will just increase the price of everyday goods and services (that depend on goods to function), it will unpopular among just about everyone but the rich (who won’t feel the impact of the price increase much).

Re: Norway to hit 100% electric vehicle sales by early next year

#183
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile in Australia: electric cars are getting taxed more to support the aging oil infrastructure

Similar in California and other states. The states typically tax gasoline and since electrics don't use any they are implementing special fees on electric vehicle purchases to make up for lost revenue. One would think that the savings in pollution (not only for the car itself, but the transport of the fuel, pollution from refineries, etc.) would offset any lost revenue from gas taxes. What makes this really nonsensic…

California is looking at a road usage charge. Longer term, as gas tax revenue drops, it seems inevitable. And other jurisdictions will do the same.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

Re: Norway to hit 100% electric vehicle sales by early next year

#184
post #7

Isn't that a strange thing, considering Norway is vast, has low population density especially in the north, and has own oil resources available?

Norway is wealthy thanks to selling fossil fuels. Norwegians feel guilty about that, but not guilty enough to stop selling them. This is essentially performative environmentalism from them. Still, it will help other countries by throwing up unforeseen problems in all-electric ground transportation, and some solutions.

It’s a matter of some pragmatism. At least their sovereign wealth fund is trying. As much as I wish all nations would take more serious action on the issue, it would seem self defeating for a small nation to step out too early ahead of larger nations in cutting off a major source of revenue. Meanwhile, maybe they’re doing better with the profits for themselves and the world by directing their wealth fund as they are.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/norways-sovereign-wealth-fund-b...

Re: Norway to hit 100% electric vehicle sales by early next year

#185
post #175
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much oil is needed to produce a single electric vehicle? What I am getting at is we will need oil extraction for a long time. While we can move away from burning it for heat, we still need it for the production of most plastics. This doesn't even begin to touch on oil's use in the extraction process of all the other metals used in car production. We also need oil for road building. I don't see that changing anyti…

oil's use in the extraction process of all the other metals used in car production. Maybe I'm being reductive, but isn't this essentially because we haven't electrified mine carts et al yet? Or are you referring to steel smelting?

A combination of both really. Also included is the transportation of raw materials to production facilities. To be fair, however, these costs exist for non-electric cars to some degree.

Re: Norway to hit 100% electric vehicle sales by early next year

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Road wear is disproportionately caused by heavy vehicles; one study estimated that "one 18-wheeler is equivalent to the impact of 9,600 cars". The gas tax is primarily a subsidy designed to support the trucking industry.

Or you can think of the trucking industry as subsidised. Trucks are used to haul goods to shops yes? Taxing them more will just increase the price of everyday goods and services (that depend on goods to function), it will unpopular among just about everyone but the rich (who won’t feel the impact of the price increase much).

You're not wrong, but this is the part where capitalism is supposed to encourage people to use methods that cost less in externalities. Businesses should pay for their externalities or else they aren't competing with each other fairly.

The question of who it is a subsidy to is important, but it is better to directly give them a subsidy than to skew the upstream market towards vehicles that damage roads and cost a ton of money to repair.

I doubt we'll get there though, I admit that we can't get anything effective done. And we'd need to effectively keep prices from rising at the register to even the playing field for infrastructure expenses.

Re: Norway to hit 100% electric vehicle sales by early next year

#187

Isn't that a strange thing, considering Norway is vast, has low population density especially in the north, and has own oil resources available?

Scandinavia in general takes global warming more seriously than most other countries on the planet. And so this isn't strange at all. The whole of Europe is amping up alternatives to petrol- and diesel-based transportation, from e-bikes, cargo e-bikes, e-scooters to Teslas and electric Porsches (Taycan), and anything inbetween.

I'm not sure about the whole of Europe, but certainly the richer countries.

https://www.acea.auto/press-release/electric-cars-10-eu-coun...

Re: Norway to hit 100% electric vehicle sales by early next year

#188
I still cant help but think about how wasteful cars are. We basically have these giant energy hungry machines who just sit idle and take up space 95% of the time, and when they are utilized, it's mostly for a single passenger with almost zero luggage.

Re: Norway to hit 100% electric vehicle sales by early next year

#189
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile in Australia: electric cars are getting taxed more to support the aging oil infrastructure

Similar in California and other states. The states typically tax gasoline and since electrics don't use any they are implementing special fees on electric vehicle purchases to make up for lost revenue. One would think that the savings in pollution (not only for the car itself, but the transport of the fuel, pollution from refineries, etc.) would offset any lost revenue from gas taxes. What makes this really nonsensic…

I have both an electric car and a Chevy Silverado 4x4 truck. My electric car has a $450 registration fee every year. My truck is only $130.

Re: Norway to hit 100% electric vehicle sales by early next year

#190
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Norway has a sovereign wealth fund (valuation: 1.4T in USD) that is setup specifically for this eventuality. That's not much - $25K per person over 10 years, and with an average income of $70K per person, and something like half of their economy is energy (most if not all social programs are funded from energy production). If oil were to stop tomorrow, they'd have around 10 years before the money runs out. (Maybe a…

it’s actually $250k per person

It's $25K "over 10 years" - they are not going to spend all of it in a single year because then there would be nothing left.
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