Live data from Hacker News

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

drive.com.au

221–230 of 279 posts

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

#221
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I think it's OK to charge vehicle owners some kinda usage fee to reflect the cost of congestion, road wear, traffic accidents etc., but it's very poorly implemented as is. An obvious solution seems to be to tax tires which are the dirtiest part of an electric car, need to be replaced moderately regularly but not too often, and which wear down in proportion to the amount and and intensity of use. Offroaders an…

Tires last too long to make this practical, I think. Let's say a set of tires lasts 30,000 miles. California's current gas tax is 67c/gallon. Let's assume a very efficient 40 mpg. That's 1.6 cents / mile. You'd need a $500 tax on a set of tires to compensate. if you did that, though, you'd need to prevent people from importing tires from other states, which is tricky to do.

You could have a special "California tyre" which has a state approved logo on the side, and require all cars registered in the state use them.

They could be designed to last however many miles the state likes by putting more or less tread on them. And have a very obvious marker they are worn out so police can easily give tickets for people driving on worn out tyres.

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

#222
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

Taxes can be a perverse incentive for revenue hungry governments to encourage the taxable behavior.

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

#223

There's a huge price difference between electric cars and gas fueled cars here in Norway. Gas fueled car buyers have to pay both 25 percent VAT and an additional tax on purchase. Buyers don't have to pay neither of those taxes if they buy an electric car. The singer of the group A-ha, Morten Harket, bought an electrical car in 1989 and refused to pay road tolls and ignored all the subsequent fines. That got a lot of…

It's a bit ironic that Norway is able to buy all those electric cars because of all that oil money they make. Production of electric cars still costs more than that of fossil fuel cars.

How are Norwegians using money from the Oil Fund to buy EVs?

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

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no carbon neutral fuel before we have a surplus of carbon neutral energy. Currently, any kWh you use to synthesize fuel could instead be used for something else. It's probably less carbon intensive to keep on burning regular fuel, because it takes a lot of energy to make synfuel. Of course it's nice that they subsidize R&D for synfuels (we might need them for niche applications after all), but selling them a…

They have been thinking about it. You haven't: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/09/porsches-new-synthetic-... https://www.siemens-energy.com/global/en/news/magazine/2021/...

How do your links counter my argument that any kWh spent on creating synfuel could be used for something else instead and as long as we don't have a surplus of carbon free energy all the carbon free electricity used in this way needs to be compensated by fossil fuels somewhere else in the grid?

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

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I heard, they actually have so much excess power that they're selling it to the UK.

Do you know how they are generating electricity?

They aren't necessarily generating it -- sometimes they're just storing it. When we produce too much electricity from wind turbines here in Denmark, Norway buys this at a negative price (to offload the Danish grid), stores it (using pumped hydroelectric energy storage), and sells it back into the market when prices are positive again.

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

#226

There's a huge price difference between electric cars and gas fueled cars here in Norway. Gas fueled car buyers have to pay both 25 percent VAT and an additional tax on purchase. Buyers don't have to pay neither of those taxes if they buy an electric car. The singer of the group A-ha, Morten Harket, bought an electrical car in 1989 and refused to pay road tolls and ignored all the subsequent fines. That got a lot of…

> There's a huge price difference between electric cars and gas fueled cars here in Norway. Gas fueled car buyers have to pay both 25 percent VAT and an additional tax on purchase. Buyers don't have to pay neither of those taxes if they buy an electric car.

You're talking about a tax difference, not a price difference. We have the same taxes here in Denmark and our EV sales aren't anywhere near Norway's level. Probably because the actual prices end up being roughly equal, but the EV usually has lower range and takes longer to fill up compared to the equally-priced gasoline car.

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

#227
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit ironic that Norway is able to buy all those electric cars because of all that oil money they make. Production of electric cars still costs more than that of fossil fuel cars.

How are Norwegians using money from the Oil Fund to buy EVs?

Norway has a fiscal deficit every year, in order to cover the deficit we're allowed to spend a couple percent of our holdings in the Oil Fund to. To my understanding, this is done by selling assets on a monthly basis in exchange for Norwegian currency by Norges Bank. [0]

One could argue that the government would not be able to offer subsidies on EVs without that option.

0: https://www.norges-bank.no/en/topics/liquidity-and-markets/F...

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

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have equivalent cyberattacks on power stations and EV charging networks.

And (admittedly depending on what type of housing you live in) you can have your own solar on the roof, set up to still supply you even if the grid is down. Hollywood is doing society a disfavour by misrepresenting the apocalypse. EVs and bicycles are the true modes of transport when trouble starts.

Yeah, Mad Max movies show people fighting in the sunny desert over drops of oil to run their cars when solar panels and an EV would have been royal. 8^D

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

#229
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mean, I think it's OK to charge vehicle owners some kinda usage fee to reflect the cost of congestion, road wear, traffic accidents etc., but it's very poorly implemented as is. An obvious solution seems to be to tax tires which are the dirtiest part of an electric car, need to be replaced moderately regularly but not too often, and which wear down in proportion to the amount and and intensity of use. Offroaders an…

The way Sweden and other countries do this is through a car ownership tax, where things like address road usage, traffic accidents, state own parking and other aspects get funded. Gasoline is then taxed independently, so when people buy a electric car they still pay the car ownership tax. On top of those are congestion and road tolls.

Last time someone on HN discussed the Australia law I asked if Australia had a car ownership tax. It seems that they do, but that the money isn't enough to support road maintenance. Seems the easy answer to the new Australia law would be to increase the car ownership tax, lower the gasoline tax to match the increase, and then you don't need a special law for electric cars. No need to reinvent the wheel.

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

#230
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know how they are generating electricity?

They aren't necessarily generating it -- sometimes they're just storing it. When we produce too much electricity from wind turbines here in Denmark, Norway buys this at a negative price (to offload the Danish grid), stores it (using pumped hydroelectric energy storage), and sells it back into the market when prices are positive again.

Electrically that is probably pretty inefficient. No doubt that it still makes sense economically.
Post reply on HN