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>The Dutch numbers are inflated by lavish incentives. In the next fiscal year, the incentives in the UK will be even more lavish. Norway was an early adopter o

>The Dutch numbers are inflated by lavish incentives. In the next fiscal year, the incentives in the UK will be even more lavish. Norway was an early adopter of large subsidies/driving perks for EVs. It looks like other countries are following suit. This obviously bodes well for Tesla—-I wonder if anybody has insight about what this could mean for Chinese EVs if they make it to Europe.

jorams 7y ago
> It looks like other countries are following suit. Actually, a major reason for the spike is that the incentives are about to be dialed back in the new year.
- ZeroGravitas 7y ago
  Which would be bad news if electric cars were fundamentally more expensive than the alternatives, but since they only started out more expensive due to low production numbers and now can compete on their own, it's a staggering success for short term government intervention in markets, similar to Germany and China's early support for PV, with a massive ROI for the specific countries and the world in general.
tyfon 7y ago
There are basically no subsidies for EVs in Norway, only tax relief. The government is not paying anyone to use EVs. Some municipals have free public charging stations but that's up to the locals to decide.
- martinald 7y ago
  Tax relief is pretty much exactly the same as subsidies though. If the Norwegian govt didn't bother doing EV tax relief, they would get another x billion NOK in taxes sitting in the treasury. It's no different to giving the billions of NOK as a discount on the purchase price like other countries.
  - tyfon 7y ago
    There is a huge difference. In one instance they government pays direct money to make something cheaper. In the other they do not collect tax on something. The argument that the "could have had" the money is moot because they never had it in the first place like with subsidies. It's like saying the US government is subsidising iphones since they could have had 100% sales tax on them but do not. And lastly, the tax they collect on the ICE cars is a pollution and/or CO2 tax so it is not applicable to EVs anyway as they do not have an indirect cost to society in form of pollution. I think they should tax ICE cars even more and same with petrol and CO2 release in general.

jorams 7y ago

> It looks like other countries are following suit. Actually, a major reason for the spike is that the incentives are about to be dialed back in the new year.

ZeroGravitas 7y ago
Which would be bad news if electric cars were fundamentally more expensive than the alternatives, but since they only started out more expensive due to low production numbers and now can compete on their own, it's a staggering success for short term government intervention in markets, similar to Germany and China's early support for PV, with a massive ROI for the specific countries and the world in general.

tyfon 7y ago

There are basically no subsidies for EVs in Norway, only tax relief. The government is not paying anyone to use EVs. Some municipals have free public charging stations but that's up to the locals to decide.

martinald 7y ago
Tax relief is pretty much exactly the same as subsidies though. If the Norwegian govt didn't bother doing EV tax relief, they would get another x billion NOK in taxes sitting in the treasury. It's no different to giving the billions of NOK as a discount on the purchase price like other countries.
- tyfon 7y ago
  There is a huge difference. In one instance they government pays direct money to make something cheaper. In the other they do not collect tax on something. The argument that the "could have had" the money is moot because they never had it in the first place like with subsidies. It's like saying the US government is subsidising iphones since they could have had 100% sales tax on them but do not. And lastly, the tax they collect on the ICE cars is a pollution and/or CO2 tax so it is not applicable to EVs anyway as they do not have an indirect cost to society in form of pollution. I think they should tax ICE cars even more and same with petrol and CO2 release in general.