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Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#71

Post by Gibbon1 »

msh wrote: post #67
fulafel wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are not good for the environment. Lifetime co2 footprint of electric cars are in the same ballpark as efficient petrol cars.

Depends a lot on how the electricity is generated. If most electricity is generated by wind and solar very different from if it was generated by coal.

And soon you won't have big daddy coal to kick around anymore.

I think I saw a heat map that showed the CO2 footprint of electric cars based on location. Here is one, there is a huge variation between states.

http://blog.wegowise.com/2012-06-26-your-cars-carbon-footpri...

The CO2 contribution from electricity is going to get better not worse, especially in states like California. California is hell bent to get off fossil fuels.

Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#72

Post by emp_zealoth »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #61
usrusr wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "clean consciousness" Which just happens to work so much better when your electricity is not provided by coal plants...

As you say, it's better if you don't rely on coal for electricity production, but it's important to note, because there's lots of propaganda doing its best to suggest otherwise, that it's still a good idea if you're using coal. Using coal is of course a ridiculous thing to do, and should be phased out immediately, but still, electric cars make sense even in that horrible scenario.

Sure, please wire us 100bn $ so we can phase it out!

Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#73

Post by Infernal »

loeg wrote: post #65
Infernal wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal, but I was speaking with a friend from Norway about 18 months ago, and he mentioned how you see Teslas everywhere because they are heavily subsidized and gas is ridiculously expensive. However, he said everyone also has a winter car, a Subaru or similar, because the electric range is so severely limited by the cold.

> However, he said everyone also has a winter car, a Subaru or similar, because the electric range is so severely limited by the cold. Article seems to suggest otherwise — population of 5 million, but only 3 million cars on the road.

Hmm, maybe "everyone" in his context was really "everyone who has a Tesla". It's been a minute since that conversation, but the gist was that Teslas are popular because of subsidies, but cold-weather battery tech isn't good enough for an EV to be your only car in Norway, supposing you need a car in the first place.

Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#75

Post by ZeroGravitas »

emp_zealoth wrote: post #72
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you say, it's better if you don't rely on coal for electricity production, but it's important to note, because there's lots of propaganda doing its best to suggest otherwise, that it's still a good idea if you're using coal. Using coal is of course a ridiculous thing to do, and should be phased out immediately, but still, electric cars make sense even in that horrible scenario.

Sure, please wire us 100bn $ so we can phase it out!

Just take the money you would have to spend on people dying from the pollution, and the money saved from not having to do as much to reduce CO2 emissions and you're already ahead.

As a bonus, there will be less environmental damage and pension payments for the taxpayer to make good when the coal corporations go bust 'accidentally' leaving all their debts unpaid.

Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#76

Post by vanattab »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #63
dghughes wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was a car that ran on tears of children and had 9 tax breaks you know they'd go for that one.

That's a very poetic way to describe the war-subsidized SUVs that many Americans drive.

Why do you consider SUVs "war-subsidized"? What's the reasoning?

Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#77

Post by vanattab »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #63
dghughes wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was a car that ran on tears of children and had 9 tax breaks you know they'd go for that one.

That's a very poetic way to describe the war-subsidized SUVs that many Americans drive.

Why do you consider SUVs "war-subsidized"? What's the reasoning?

Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#78

Post by stuaxo »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #70
kalleboo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I assume if one were charging a batter one could also divert some power to keep it warm The Tesla is always diverting power to keep the batteries warm in the winter. In fact, if you park it outdoors in freezing temperatures, and plug it in to an American single-phase 120V outlet using a long extension cord, all the power will go to keeping the batteries from freezing and it won't charge at all.

Kinda conundrum there, you want good thermal coupling to the environment to shed heat when the batteries are charging. When the car is sitting in the cold you want the batteries insulated.

Perhaps bits of metal that can physically touch between the outside and inside (or not) as needed could help ?

Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#79

Post by ZeroGravitas »

vanattab wrote: post #76
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very poetic way to describe the war-subsidized SUVs that many Americans drive.

Why do you consider SUVs "war-subsidized"? What's the reasoning?

Americas wars have often been in places that coincidentally favour their local business monopolies. "War is a racket" by Major General Smedley Butler is a good historical primer in this.

The wars in Iraq were fairly obviously related to the oil production in this area. If done because of that, then the 3 Trillion (that's trillion, with a T) spent on these wars is a subsidy of every oil user in the US.

Re: Why do they love electric cars in Norway?

#80

Post by fulafel »

msh wrote: post #67
fulafel wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are not good for the environment. Lifetime co2 footprint of electric cars are in the same ballpark as efficient petrol cars.

Depends a lot on how the electricity is generated. If most electricity is generated by wind and solar very different from if it was generated by coal.

Even in the hypothetical case of clean electricity the lifetime co2 emissions are significant of resource intensive manufacturing, as roughly half of the lifetime co2 footprint happens in manufacturing phase.

Better than gasoline powered cars, but not order of magnitude better. So we still can't have everyone driving cars in the future.

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