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Norway reportedly agrees on banning new sales of gas-powered cars by 2025

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Re: Norway reportedly agrees on banning new sales of gas-powered cars by 2025

#91
post #6

It's not that petrol cars will be forbidden but buying a new non zero emission car in 2025 will be financially not beneficial, according to Norwegian press. 99% of the electricity in Norway comes from hydro power plants, it's a huge exporter of gas and oil and it's rich. That makes it easier to make such a progressive decision but congrats for setting the first deadline.

Their problem is that once more they can't think beyond the capitol. There already are all kinds of silly taxes and such to try to get people to drive less etc. But outside of the biggest cities public transport only runs during office hours. End result is that owning and using a car i vital to continued survival. So expect this to turn petrol cars into something of a Giffen good, if not an outright Veblen good.

Chances are, by 2025, you can buy a hydrogen car if EV doesn't get you far enough. That being said. EV should get you pretty far in 2025.

Re: Norway reportedly agrees on banning new sales of gas-powered cars by 2025

#92

I'll keep banging on this since I haven't yet heard a satisfactory answer: what are you going to do about people who park on the street or in garages they do not own? Overnight charging systems are for homeowners. Even with a (high end, optimistic) public charge station time of 30 minutes, if there are just 4 people ahead of you in line, that's 2.5 hours out of your day. Yes self driving may fix this eventually, but…

In 2025, wouldn't you just use hydrogen if this is still a problem?

Re: Norway reportedly agrees on banning new sales of gas-powered cars by 2025

#93

I get it that they want to use electricity as the primary energy source for vehicles, and make all sort of fossil fuels non-viable options, but still curious - does "gas" generally means just/mostly gasoline, or applies to LPG as well? (Just that in my native tongue a word "benzin" is used for gasoline, and "gas" is always about propane/butane mixes.)

In American/Canadian parlance "gas" as discussing flammable fuel almost always means "gasoline" with exceptions like "gas main" or "gas canister" where it refers to "natural gas" (methane) or in the case of the canister, possibly propane, but usually people say "propane canister" or "propane tank" to be specific.

Re: Norway reportedly agrees on banning new sales of gas-powered cars by 2025

#94
post #78

This is a very bold bet. It would not work in the US, at least without some kind of revolution in public transit. There are plenty of places where not owning a car means you basically cannot have a job or a social life, and many of these are far from any existing EV stations. It will take a long time to replicate the network of petrol stations that covers basically all US roads. Also, modern EV cars are still an orde…

Oslo is aiming at zero-emission public transit by 2020. The goal is to have a mix of hydrogen busses (we already have one driving around) and EV busses. The buss stops will be charged with an automated charger which is good enough to (in worst case) bring the buss to the next stop. For longer trips, hydrogen busses are used.

Re: Norway reportedly agrees on banning new sales of gas-powered cars by 2025

#95

Passing laws now about what SHOULD be in the future is a way for politicians to make it seem like they're doing something when they have no real solutions. It will be technology and industry innovators and disruptors that make this possible, but I'm sure the intelligentsia and politicians will give "forward thinking policy makers" the credit.

So instead of helping EV companies ("industry innovators and disruptors") by making their products more attractive, they should just do nothing and hope some "disruptors" come around?

How many hundreds of millions more in tax breaks and subsidies does Tesla need?

They're getting a lot of help.

Re: Norway reportedly agrees on banning new sales of gas-powered cars by 2025

#96

what about trucks, heavy machinery and motorcycles? battery tech is not there for all of those. range/power/density work against batteries in those. current models all suck.

There was a time when it was laughable that the "automobile" would ever replace the horse. It broke down constantly, it had such anemic engine power that it could barely get up a hill, and the manufacturers of these vehicles were just a bunch of people in a ramshackle garage.

Yet somehow we made it work.

Re: Norway reportedly agrees on banning new sales of gas-powered cars by 2025

#97

While I think it's great that they've set a date, I think it's perhaps a little premature. Tesla has some nice options, Renault and other have to, they are all either in the high price range or to small for a family to use as the their only car. The number of alternatives on the marked seems a bit limited, and I don't think nine years is enough to remedy that. Also what are they going to do in respect to charges, wil…

There are alternatives to fossil fuels besides EV.

Also, fossil fuel based cars will not be banned. The goal only applies to new cars. In Norway, people on average keep their cars for 15 years or so, due to the high cost of owning a car (cars are taxed heavily here).

Re: Norway reportedly agrees on banning new sales of gas-powered cars by 2025

#98
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no need for the government to set up a system to make sure older vehicles are taken out of service. You just use a combination of taxes and subsidies. You tax gas, vehicles based on their emissions or both to make old cars unaffordable, so people will take them out of service. On the other hand you make electric cars more affordable and usable through subsidies on electric cars and infrastructure for them. I…

They should probably skip subsidies though. Taxing emissions makes sense because emissions are a direct externality. But when you subsidies replacements you are essentially betting on the most efficient solution, not at all certain it would be the best, you also introduce new externalities for people to profit on unfairly. I'm guessing it would be much more effective to tax emissions, do so aggressively, and then jus…

We tax emissions. This way, a plug-in hybrid is cheaper than a diesel-car, and a pure EV is cheaper than a plug-in hybrid.

We also have some special privileges for EV cars. Like free parking on state/county-owned parking places and the option of driving in the public transport lane. Special privileges are supposed to go away in a couple of years though, due to the increase in EV owners.

We've had some problems with this after the "emission-test-cheating" scandal though.

Re: Norway reportedly agrees on banning new sales of gas-powered cars by 2025

#99

what about trucks, heavy machinery and motorcycles? battery tech is not there for all of those. range/power/density work against batteries in those. current models all suck.

Trucks and heavy machinery are have a later target (2030 if I remember correctly). The 2025 goal applies to cars for private use and public transportation (Oslo, the capitol, plans to have zero-emission busses by 2020).

Re: Norway reportedly agrees on banning new sales of gas-powered cars by 2025

#100

Passing laws now about what SHOULD be in the future is a way for politicians to make it seem like they're doing something when they have no real solutions. It will be technology and industry innovators and disruptors that make this possible, but I'm sure the intelligentsia and politicians will give "forward thinking policy makers" the credit.

1) This is not a law or a planned ban. It's a mission statement. A target. You'd be hard pressed to find a government more opposed to bans than the one we have right now. Chances are they will increase tax on emissions to reach this target, but they could also do nothing and hope the market will sort it out on its own.

2) Political bans, taxation or subsidies creates incentives. This has a habit of bringing innovators and disruptors out of the woodwork.

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