10 ms·
Electric Cars Hit Record in Norway
- surfmike 8y agoNot surprising given that they don't tax electric cars and that normal petrol cars have taxes that can be around 100%, doubling their value. Also, electric cars in Norway have lots of other incentives: reduced road tolls, registration fees, and petrol is heavily taxed.
- rconti 8y agoAnd Model 3 deliveries started either at the end of February or early March, meaning a lot of pent up demands/orders are being satisfied all at once.
- mitchellgoffpc 8y agoTrue, but Tesla is still only selling the AWD Model 3 variants in Europe right now, which start at ~$50k USD plus import duties and VAT. Even with government subsidies that’s still a really expensive car for most people. I’m expecting an even larger burst of orders once the RWD variants start shipping to Europe.
- lb1lf 8y agoKeep in mind that in Norway, fossil cars are (and have been for a long time) taxed to high heaven. It is not uncommon for a car too double its cost as it is being taxed upon import. Hence, in a number of other markets a $50k Tesla 3 is competing against a $25k (or whatever) Golf. In Norway, a $50k Tesla 3 is competing against a $50k Golf. (The numbers are just pulled out of a hat, but they illustrate the point; Norway is a very lucrative market to sell premium electric cars in as the tax advantages relative to fossil cars make premium EVs about as expensive as run-of-the-mill fossils - and they have a few other advantages like reduced tolls, driving in bus lanes &c.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- josteink 8y ago> normal petrol cars have taxes that can be around 100%, doubling their value. Id rather phrase that doubling their cost (making their relative value much lower).
- angott 8y agoAlso, keep in mind the extremely high salaries in Norway. Italy or Greece could decide to offer the same tax benefits, but still very few people would be able to afford a Tesla.
- TulliusCicero 8y agoI don't know why you got downvoted. Norway being quite wealthy is obviously a factor.
- tyfon 8y agoMost of the electric cars sold here are leafs and e-golfs though. A tesla is still around 800k NOK which is a little less than twice the average annual gross salary or a quarter house (unless you live around Oslo or Stavanger). I'm driving a toyota avensis myself, the test drive of a model s didn't give a good impression. I'm also not prepared to buy a car that expensive, even with taxes my toyota was 350k NOK. Hopefully there will be long range electric cars from some other manufacturer soon. I do have some hope for the solid battery tech that toyota is developing now.
- zemvpferreira 8y agoStill. I’m in Portugal and a Tesla costs 5-10x the average annual salary. An e-golf 2-3x I believe. Wealth matters.
- paavoova 8y agoSociety's purchasing power worries me. How environmentally sustainable is it to replace all the billions of cars with electric? And then decades later, perhaps even under a decade given how fast some technologies develop, how sustainable is it to replace these electric vehicles with newer models? If people have the money, that's what they're going to do. And specifically in regards to Norway, the country exports its oil to other countries and owns its wealth to oil, being one of the largest exporters. So while headlines on electric car adoption are nice, they really miss the big picture.
- gnicholas 8y agoI was surprised the article didn't mention the upfront tax savings. Free parking and tolls are nice and all (and were mentioned), but I'd imagine the big incentive is the $40k-$100k upfront savings.
- gridlockd 8y agoKind of ironic for Norway to export all this petrol for cars to burn in other countries and then use some of that money to make domestic cars run on electricity.
- gsich 8y agoIt's probably the only country that exports oil and is not a shithole (for a lack of better wording), or a dictatorship. Edit: with oil being the highest export
- nickelcitymario 8y agoCanada exports oil. We are neither a shithole nor a dictatorship.
- munk-a 8y agoAs a progressive and hip vancouverite... the part of canada that exports oil is a bit of a shithole and rather authoritarian when it comes to their dealings with the other provinces (thanks for the pipeline alberta!)
- nickelcitymario 8y agoWhile I don't like the Alberta government, there's nothing authoritarian about them fighting for their own self-interest. Every province tries to do this. Some have more leverage than others. And it's a beautiful province full of wonderful people, in my humble opinion. (So is B.C. I'm from Ontario, for what it's worth.)
- gsich 8y agoI should have added: country with oil as highest export good.
- newnewpdro 8y agoThe US exports oil, so which is it - a shithole or dictatorship according to you?
- rcMgD2BwE72F 8y agoAre you saying that there's some kind of externalities at play here? Because I can think of a few other externalities that help non-EV far more than the ones you mentioned (not taxing them for ruining our health and climate, for a start). This all seems an overdue correction to me. But I'd go further and support non-individual transportation more, too.
- rootusrootus 8y agoWell, if you're going to blame non-EV cars for all sorts of negative externalities, you're going to need to figure out how to credit them for the positive externalities too. That's a tall order.
- beefield 8y agoYou happen to have any examples of positive externalities non-EV cars have that EV cars do not have?
- reaperducer 8y agoNot the OP. And this is not for cars, specifically, but we're a very long way away from electric fire trucks, ambulances, and construction equipment. Also, I'm not sure what the OP is on about with this: not taxing them for ruining our health and climate, for a start Since electric cars aren't taxed, either, that's just playing with numbers.
- douglasisshiny 8y agoI believe the op is suggesting that there have been significant deferred costs associated with burning fossil fuels.
- sbierwagen 8y agoWhy can't you electrify ambulances? They're specialized taxis, many short trips, spending a lot of time parked. Only time you need long range is for patient transfer between hospitals. Fire trucks only make short trips, and (ideally) have a tiny capacity ratio. Ditto for construction vehicles, which rarely travel long distances, often want to be heavy for greater traction, and can have surprisingly low power output. (The Cat D5K2 weighs 20,000 pounds but only has a 105 HP engine: https://www.cat.com/en_US/products/new/equipment/dozers/small-dozers/1000001276.html https://www.cat.com/en_US/products/new/equipment/dozers/smal... )
- vinni2 8y agoThese incentives won’t be permanent though. Once a desired target for electric vehicles hit all the incentives will be taken away. Like they did in Denmark. Which dropped Tesla sales dramatically! https://nordic.businessinsider.com/teslas-sales-fell-a-jaw-dropping-94-in-denmark-last-year--and-elon-musk-could-see-it-from-miles-away-2017-6/ https://nordic.businessinsider.com/teslas-sales-fell-a-jaw-d...
- xiphias2 8y agoThe really interesting stats will come when the affordable (Standard Range) Model 3 will be available in Europe in a few months. I'm sure a lot of people in Norway are waiting for it.
- beat 8y ago"That's impossible!", say a whole lot of people who prefer their beliefs to measurable, objective reality.
- KorematsuFred 8y agoIt is indeed impossible assuming the competition between gas cars and electric cars is fair.
- munk-a 8y agoNo, it's very possible if you actually start building externalities into the fair cost.
- Gibbon1 8y agoIt's totally possible when you look at total cost of ownership vs sticker price.
- phil248 8y agoHow do you make it fair if one type of car is guaranteed to wreck the planet? Hard to level that playing field. But Norway seems to have done a decent job of it.
- Zenst 8y agoI'd be interested how well electric cars faired in Norway as I would expect the colder months would impact the battery performance (reduce range). Which makes me wonder if manufacturers do any country adaptations for the local climate.
- Thlom 8y agoThe reduced range isn’t that bad and most trips are relatively short and nowhere near draining the battery.
- readhn 8y agocold climates are better for batteries than hot.
- nickelcitymario 8y agoI really want that to be true, but try having your car battery die 3 times in a single week of -44 degree celsius (-47 fahrenheit) weather. Or, less dramatically, watch your phone go from 100% charged to 5% charged in just 30 minutes in that same temperature. I'm no physicist, but anecdotally, you are very very wrong. UPDATE: See hwillis' comment below. I'm so very very wrong, and am ashamed of my ignorance.
- hwillis 8y agoIt is actually true. The battery stores just as much energy when it's cold, and has higher efficiency. The problem is that that efficiency drops dramatically as you try to pull more power. A very simplified explanation would be that the charge carriers have a harder time moving quickly through cold electrolyte. This results in a kind of drag (most of which is actually literal drag) that results in a lower voltage on the output. Your phone measures its charge via the voltage (partly), so when it starts pulling more power it suddenly registers much lower voltage. If you turned it off and let the voltage recover, it would show as charged again. Normal lead acid batteries will fail for the same reason; they can't push amps at low temperatures. If they were heated up they would work fine and they will have lost less charge than if they had been sitting at room temperature. Electric car batteries are the same, but the cold temperature enables to push much more power for longer without getting too hot. Please do not compare phone batteries to large, carefully controlled and well-treated batteries like those in new EVs. They are totally different animals. Phone batteries are probably the most brutal of all common battery applications; they are used as heat sinks, have zero temperature control, and regularly experience forces and temperatures that are way out of spec.
- finnjohnsen2 8y agoIts basically just a tax trick to make us look and feel better about all these oil fields we're harvesting at full speed
- newnewpdro 8y agoThis is irrelevant. The potential value is in an entire nation demonstrating it's possible to function perfectly well at a high quality of life on an electrified transportation system. Whatever means were used to compel its citizens to cooperate with pivoting energy sources is moot. Every nation will have to figure that out for itself. Edit: added "potential" qualifier
- navigatesol 8y ago>The value is in an entire nation demonstrating An entire nation? It was one month of around 10,000 cars. A good sign, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's see how month two goes perhaps?
- newnewpdro 8y agoYou're right, I wasn't careful enough in typing what I intended to say, edited, thanks.
- finnjohnsen2 8y agoIt matters how you pay for your your clean vehicles. If your money is from burning lots og oil, which is partially the case here, you may not eventually be saving any CO2 from the atmosphere. Which is the whole point of electric vehicles. I would love to see some numbers on these things.
- newnewpdro 8y agoThere is no realistic scenario where all the remaining oil stays in the ground. The best practical case is that it gets applied towards transitioning to renewables ASAP. What seems more likely right now is that most of it gets burned gratuitously on Business As Usual; frivolously flying around the planet and driving archaic gas-guzzling machines without even preparing ourselves for when it runs out. Actually stopping CO2 emissions and not burning most of the remaining oil is a ridiculous fantasy.
- meritt 8y agoWhile the data is accurate, it's a bit misleading. Tesla started Model 3 deliveries to Europe in March from pre-orders that began three years ago. We're seeing the impact of these pre-orders all coming in at once and the number of vehicles registered last month is very anomalous. In total there were 18,375 cars registered in March compared to 11,106 in February '19 and 14,401 in March '18. If you back out the Tesla Model 3 impact (-5,300), you're left with 13,075 vehicles registered last month. [1] Data source: https://ofv.no/bilsalget/bilsalget-i-mars-2019-1 https://ofv.no/bilsalget/bilsalget-i-mars-2019-1
- cjohansson 8y agoThen there is the issue of electricity shortage. Sweden for instance doesn’t have enough electricity to supply electric cars if everyone should have it. And then there is solar storm / EMP vulnerabilities with all electric infrastructure. And then there is cobolt shortage issues and production issues. No, I vote for E100 or gasdriven cars for the future.
- ClassyJacket 8y agoYet you ignore the possibility of a petrol shortage, which is not only theoretically possible, but has actually happened? Other than the obvious environmental and health impacts.
- decebalus1 8y agobecause everyone will switch to electric cars tomorrow. Supply will accommodate the demand. There wasn't enough gas to go around when cars came out. Solar storm / EMP vulnerabilities? Are you fucking kidding me? How about OPEC as a tried and tested vulnerability? How about shortage of oil as finite resource as a vulnerability?
- cjohansson 8y agoEthanol and gas is not finite resources. Electricity is hard to produce in a enbironmental friendly way at the amount required for electric cars.
- edoo 8y agoYou can also pretty much drive across the whole country in an EV. That is huge. A 300 mile range in the US isn't spectacular.
- marvin 8y agoYou can't drive north to south without charging. But I think there's superchargers available.
- flurdy 8y ago:/ That is a bit disingenuous in a narrow but long country. Norway is only 6km at its narrowest (Tysfjord) but is 2,500km long (and 25,000km of coastline). Of course, the USA is enormous in comparison, especially width wise. https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/country-size-comparison/united-states/norway https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/country-size-comparison/unit... (Trying to find facts I binged into a few odd pages. Not that relevant to EVs or geography but this was an interesting comparison: https://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/US/NO https://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/US/NO)
- edoo 8y agoCheck out a population density map. Almost the entire country is in the EV range blob in the bottom.
- roland35 8y agoElectric cars are a lot of fun to drive, but ultimately I think the incentives are the biggest factor here. I was thinking about getting a pure battery electric car (BEV) but the risk that worried me was how long the range would be in 8-10 years in the cold. I have a short commute now but I did not know where I would be living and working in 8-10 years!
- leesec 8y agoThe cheapest Tesla right now has an over 200+ range. In 10 years it will be much longer. I hope your future commute is not 100 miles each way.
- roland35 8y agoI was thinking more a Nissan Leaf as a Model 3 is a bit above my price range right now sadly. I recently had an 80 mile/day commute through a large valley/hill which would have been impossible in a used Leaf unless I could charge at work.
- TulliusCicero 8y agoLeaf+ is a little over 200 now.
- rootusrootus 8y agoIf most people don't really need more than a couple hundred miles range, and batteries are by far the single most expensive component of an EV, then it doesn't really make sense that we're going to see significant changes in range. Probably it gets up to around 300 or so and stays about there indefinitely, or at least until a major shift in battery technology.
- paavoova 8y agoMy concerns are less about the vehicle technology but what gets implicitly bundled with it. Privacy, for example, being an issue, with newer cars being cellular equipped and having telemetry enabled and no way to opt out. Tesla is allowed all my GPS data, which I don't feel comfortable with. With an older car you're free to rebuild it within your means - can you legally do the same with an electric vehicle? With the hardware and software being so locked down, it may not even be legal to tamper with it, which on one hand is a valid concern for stuff like self-driving technology, but at the same time makes these newer cars proprietary black boxes that you can only ever send back to the factory.
- lastpingstandin 8y agoThe tax breaks used to encourage electric vehicles is almost entirely paid for through fossil fuel exports. While I appreciate any move towards better sustainability, let's not forget that Norway is effectively exporting its emissions.
- DeonPenny 8y agoReally they are like 90% tesla and a little bit of other cars.
- dang 8y agoRecent electric car record in Norway thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18806930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18806930
- jillesvangurp 8y agoEVs being popular in Norway is interesting for a couple of reasons mainly because they counter popular arguments against EV . 1) Lots of people are worried about EV performance in cold weather. Well, if you can drive an EV in Narvik (well within the polar circle), that means this is pretty much a solved problem. I don't think many people realize just how dangerous can be to operate a vehicle in arctic temperatures in a remote area where the weather can kill you in no time at all. E.g. heating your car is not optional when it is minus 40 and you have to be prepared for the car breaking down. The cold can kill you in no time at all if you get stuck in the middle of nowhere. Yet, EVs are both common and popular across Norway (not just the south). That means Norwegians consider them safe and practical enough to drive around some of the harshest places in the world. 2) Range anxiety in a huge, sparsely populated country with a harsh climate like Norway is ... not a thing. There are charging points all over the place. Better still, in much of the country it is common to plugin petrol cars as well to keep them warm. This is not optional when temperatures regularly drop well below the point where the car would even start. If you are plugging the car in anyway, you might as well charge the car. And of course electricity is dirt cheap in Norway because they have hydro-power. There are of course many other reasons why EVs in Norway (and elsewhere) are interesting. But I thought these were worth highlighting.