Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

electrek.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 182 posts

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

#41

Post by alkonaut »

charlesdm wrote: post #9
PhilipA wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are thinking of Denmark.

Just checked: a Porsche GT4 (€88k in Belgium) costs €180k in Norway. So might be both Norway and Denmark. I have an honest question (and don't downvote me for this), but how do you enjoy life in Scandinavian countries? Everything seems to be taxed to hell: income, wealth, cars, alcohol, etc. Does that actually leave any room for fun that involves spending money? People don't need to be living in massive luxury and yo…

> People don't need to be living in massive luxury and you don't always need to spend money to enjoy yourself, but aren't these countries pushing it?

I think a lot of it comes down to material vs non material quality of life.

First of all, very little of taxes evaporate in e.g wars. That helps. Most of it seems to fund things that make me happy or at least not worried. I'm not worried about getting sick, old, whether my kids can go to university etc. At least I don't worry about the economics of it. In the US I'd live in a house twice as big and I could likely drive a fun car on the weekends. On the other hand I wouldn't be doing 8w of time off every summer and 2 years off with the kids. I honestly don't mind 30% income tax and a large chunk of payroll tax, just so I don't have to pay health insurance companies, do pension saving or save for college.

All the money I have at the end of the month is basically for spending. There is no need to save it other than in case the car breaks down or similar. I keep a months salary or two on hand for that. I don't need a pile of money for growing old or being sued or sending the kids to college.

When it comes to "taxes on fun" I'm inclined to agree a bit more - some things feels like gov't parenting, but it has some nice side effects such as making people drink nicer wine (a $2 bottle of wine would be $8 in Sweden while a $10 bottle might be $10 in Sweden. So understandably the $2 bottle isn't even imported).

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

#42

Post by tormeh »

charlesdm wrote: post #13
Numberwang wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we can really communicate how different things are to f.ex. the US. I enjoy paying lots of taxes and still have lot's of money after doing so. For me the stability and predictability of society is worth contributing to.

I live in Belgium, which is also a high tax country (but not as much as Scandinavian countries). The way it seems to me in Belgium is that the average person is barely getting by, which in part has to do with the high tax rate. As a resident, you do get back a lot, but I'm unsure whether it compensates for the lack of additional net income.

It's not really comparable. The political cultures in the two countries are very different. Belgium is a high-tax country only for those who pay their taxes in full, which many are able to avoid. The Norwegian real tax base is broader, so the load is more evenly distributed which gives the government more money which gives you more stuff back.

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

#43

Post by tormeh »

frik wrote: post #22

How many new power plants are planned? Or do many houses have their own photovoltaic. Optimally, one has a house with 10+KW/H photovoltaic panels at home, an battery storage and an electric car. The battery storage is needed, as one is usually away at work when the sun is shining. And if you deliver the eletricity to the grid provider you get little money, so it would make sense to use the power yourself or store it…

Norway has lots of hydroelectric power. A lot of it's exported, though, so using more of it will make the countries that would otherwise use Norwegian hydro use something dirtier instead.

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

#44

Post by andlier »

The headline and article are a bit misleading, the share of completely electric cars (no internal combustion engine) is actually dropping compared to last year as there are some newly introduced tax-reductions and benefits for hybrid plug-in vehicles as well. Many of the top-selling cars on the list that is counted as electric are actually cars with a small battery and electric motor along with a traditional ICE. [0] The topsellers of "electric" cars are actually big cars like the VW Passat GTE and Volvo XC90, both of which will probably produce more emissions than smaller ICE-only vehicles through their lifetime (unless the owner is very concious about charging the battery all the time.) [0] http://ev-sales.blogspot.no/2017/02/norway-january-2017.html

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

#45

Post by charlesdm »

tormeh wrote: post #42
charlesdm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Belgium, which is also a high tax country (but not as much as Scandinavian countries). The way it seems to me in Belgium is that the average person is barely getting by, which in part has to do with the high tax rate. As a resident, you do get back a lot, but I'm unsure whether it compensates for the lack of additional net income.

It's not really comparable. The political cultures in the two countries are very different. Belgium is a high-tax country only for those who pay their taxes in full, which many are able to avoid. The Norwegian real tax base is broader, so the load is more evenly distributed which gives the government more money which gives you more stuff back.

This is correct. Employees generally can't avoid taxes, whereas (self employed, or wealthy) people who understand the tax code are able to pay very little.

At the same time, most of the things the government is giving back tend to go to employees, so the people that pay most generally receive the most back from the system, which is good.

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

#46

Post by ebbv »

paganel wrote: post #21
interfixus wrote: post #12

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.

While the initial cost of EVs is higher the idea that you have to buy new batteries every 4-5 years is completely wrong. There are LEAFs with over 100k miles on their original batteries still running strong.

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

#47

Post by svantana »

dokein wrote: post #34
svantana wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that taxes don't just disappear, right? Tax revenue pays for things like child care, health care, universities etc. That means the average consumer can spend more on frivolous things even if they are more expensive. So yeah us Scandinavians are living a pretty sweet life :)

Let's presume that 40% taxes are optimal for Sweden / Norway, and that the U.S. tax rate is 30% [A]. That does not mean that increasing the U.S. tax rate to 40% is optimal for the U.S. - do you think the current U.S. government, Donald Trump, military industrial complex, etc. should get more money to work with? A. These numbers are made up

Yes I totally agree that there can be problems with high taxes (the Laffer curve, corruption, tax avoidance, etc). I was mainly refuting the idea that high tax rates must lead to "poorer" citizens. In many cases the money is just passed around, and if so it's a zero sum game.

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

#48

Post by [deleted] »

tomjen3 wrote: post #33
charlesdm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just checked: a Porsche GT4 (€88k in Belgium) costs €180k in Norway. So might be both Norway and Denmark. I have an honest question (and don't downvote me for this), but how do you enjoy life in Scandinavian countries? Everything seems to be taxed to hell: income, wealth, cars, alcohol, etc. Does that actually leave any room for fun that involves spending money? People don't need to be living in massive luxury and yo…

You know how Denmark is one of the best countries to cycle in? How so many danes commute to work on a bike? Sure some it has to do with nice lanes and beating traffic, but a lot of it comes from 170ish % tax on cars. I own a car, but it is tiny one that I paid more for than most US cars. Mostly you have fun by doing things that are cheaper - you might play a table top game rather than go to the cinema, or watch the m…

[deleted]

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

#49

Post by vertex-four »

oblio wrote: post #38
dokein wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's presume that 40% taxes are optimal for Sweden / Norway, and that the U.S. tax rate is 30% [A]. That does not mean that increasing the U.S. tax rate to 40% is optimal for the U.S. - do you think the current U.S. government, Donald Trump, military industrial complex, etc. should get more money to work with? A. These numbers are made up

I think his point is that instead of giving the government less money you should work on making sure that the government actually does the right thing with the money it gets.

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.

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

#50

Post by erikbye »

svantana wrote: post #14
charlesdm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just checked: a Porsche GT4 (€88k in Belgium) costs €180k in Norway. So might be both Norway and Denmark. I have an honest question (and don't downvote me for this), but how do you enjoy life in Scandinavian countries? Everything seems to be taxed to hell: income, wealth, cars, alcohol, etc. Does that actually leave any room for fun that involves spending money? People don't need to be living in massive luxury and yo…

You do realize that taxes don't just disappear, right? Tax revenue pays for things like child care, health care, universities etc. That means the average consumer can spend more on frivolous things even if they are more expensive. So yeah us Scandinavians are living a pretty sweet life :)

As for sweet life, speak for yourself, please.
Post reply on HN