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

drive.com.au

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

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's mostly because of the lack of midmarket cars. I bought a used sub-$20k electrical car a few months ago; it can be done. The market needs pressure to create cars in that price range; right now EVs are mostly luxury cars. Tesla is not the car we should be aiming for; what we need are things in the class of the E-Golf, Kia Niro, FFE, Fiat 500E etc. that are the size of a Corolla and cost 20k CAD or less. Until th…

>I bought a used sub-$20k electrical car a few months ago Out of curiosity, what make and model? I'm trying to find an EV and like everyone is saying, it's all luxury vehicles.

If you think of it from the manufacturers perspective it makes sense. Supply of batteries is constrained so of course they are going to use them in cars they can make the most money from. This problem will solve itself over time.

This is why I think it was a mistake not to use plugin hybrids as a stepping stone to full EV's. They might be marginally more complex but you could make five times as many cars with the same battery capacity.

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

#232

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.

I would love to see a citation for that as its a very surprising number!

Found it: https://www.gao.gov/products/109954

A couple of caveats: it's from 1979 and deals with interstates only.

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

#233

It will be interesting if there comes a point where ICE vehicles are such a small minority of all vehicles, that supporting infrastructure (petrol stations, traditional mechanics, oil change services, etc) starts to collapse and disappear. There may still be some infrastructure for special use cases like long haul trucking or industrial vehicles, but it might become untenable for the average consumer to own an ICE ve…

Doesn't seem to become reality yet, Norway is really an exception here, their great wealth helps kickstart adoption massively.

> before charging stations became widespread.

They still aren't and there are no solutions for infrastructure and growth is still severely lacking and disappointingly slow. There is also no solution for people without a dedicated parking spot, which is especially common in cities.

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

#234
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…

In the UK tax is paid explicitly per car, in tiers of engine size (for passenger cars) and I should assume emissions / weight for commercial vehicles. Petrol is heavily taxed (by US standards), but that’s everywhere in the continent.

I like the idea of taxing tyres, as it explicitly taxes mileage and pollution. Would it create weird incentives? People running on tyres too long to avoid the tax? Reusing old, more polluting tyres?

Maybe we should just tax on mileage. In fact why not at the pump/charging station...

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

#235
post #229

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…

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…

UK is similar, except roads are upkept from general taxes, for all road users, including cyclists, pedestrians, and of course horses (it’s the UK after all). Plus car ownership tax, and petrol tax.

It’s the common erroneous argument of angry drivers against cyclists: get off my road, you’re not paying for it.

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

#236

It will be interesting if there comes a point where ICE vehicles are such a small minority of all vehicles, that supporting infrastructure (petrol stations, traditional mechanics, oil change services, etc) starts to collapse and disappear. There may still be some infrastructure for special use cases like long haul trucking or industrial vehicles, but it might become untenable for the average consumer to own an ICE ve…

Yeah, and this should be a huge incentive for Governments to implement rebates and things to encourage more EVs. Our Federal Government in Australia is very strongly captured by lobbyists for all sorts of multinational companies, and some of the big ones are the oil & gas industry, so there's little movement here, but when you really think about it, having the sovereign capacity to fuel your vehicle fleet instead of…

In Norway yes, because everyone is pretty well off. Currently that would only help people with the highest incomes. And for those it often isn't too relevant if you get a $20,000 tax break. Companies don't care anyway because they can completely write them off and they also have parking space for chargers. So adoption happens mainly here.

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

#237

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.

We need trucks. We don’t need people in cars.

We need trucks about as much as we need people in cars.

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

#238
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

UK is similar, except roads are upkept from general taxes, for all road users, including cyclists, pedestrians, and of course horses (it’s the UK after all). Plus car ownership tax, and petrol tax. It’s the common erroneous argument of angry drivers against cyclists: get off my road, you’re not paying for it.

General taxes is the big alternative. When the sum from petrol tax goes down you need to fill in the missing difference in the budget. Electric car owners don't feel targeted by general taxes. Taxing the fuel was a decent way in the past to move the taxation closer to the party that utilized the roads, but in the future we will need to find a different way.

As a side note about angry drivers, I actively try to avoid being angry with cyclists. They have to be outside in the rain and cold, while inside the car it's pretty nice. I can wait.

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

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. But a key difference is that the electric grid seems to be drastically more decentralized than fuel pipelines. Pipelines for liquid or gaseous fuel have a huge upfront cost and maintenance requirements compared to running power lines, so the incentives are to build them as big as possible. Taking down a power station is certainly a viable attack vector, but the damage caused by losing a single station is d…

Do you not remember the massive blackouts in the last 50 years? Entire regions of the USA and Canada have gone dark from time to time. California teters on the brink regularly. Remember last winter's troubles in Texas? It's not really any more stable than fuel distribution IMO.

EV owners had it good during the Texas Kerfuffle: https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7vyvk/texas-tesla-owners-ar...

They could use the huge battery in their car to charge devices and some people used them to warm their garage - something you can't do with a petrol/diesel car without, you know, dying.

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

#240
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK is similar, except roads are upkept from general taxes, for all road users, including cyclists, pedestrians, and of course horses (it’s the UK after all). Plus car ownership tax, and petrol tax. It’s the common erroneous argument of angry drivers against cyclists: get off my road, you’re not paying for it.

General taxes is the big alternative. When the sum from petrol tax goes down you need to fill in the missing difference in the budget. Electric car owners don't feel targeted by general taxes. Taxing the fuel was a decent way in the past to move the taxation closer to the party that utilized the roads, but in the future we will need to find a different way. As a side note about angry drivers, I actively try to avoid…

> As a side note about angry drivers, I actively try to avoid being angry with cyclists. They have to be outside in the rain and cold, while inside the car its pretty nice. I can wait.

Thank you!

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