6 ms·

Typical with these gas car future bans. The politicians set a date at which they assume EV's will be technically and economically superior and have already won

Typical with these gas car future bans. The politicians set a date at which they assume EV's will be technically and economically superior and have already won in the market. Then they will credit their ban for the transition, even though they have done nothing. If they are wrong and gas cars are still being sold near the deadline, they will quietly extend it, because they are never going to actually force a sizeable population to give up their cars and lose an election.

kgwgk 5y ago
If they are economically superior here is thanks to politicians though.
- fallingknife 5y ago
  Yeah I'll give you that. Norway has excellent policies on EV's. I just hate these symbolic "bans."
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    The bans are not symbolic. They are signals to automakers that there won't be a market for their legacy products. This gives them time to shift their supply chain towards producing EVs. The bans can always be pulled forward if the market evolves faster than anticipated. If EV sales in Norway continue to trend at 100% past April, Norway can pull forward its ban to "immediately." They could also accelerate petroleum station phase outs as it would not impact the EV fleet.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      >If EV sales in Norway continue to trend at 100% past April, Norway can pull forward its ban to "immediately. Why would they need to do that? If EV sales trend at ~100% nearly continuously then there is no reason to ban anything unless the goal of the ban is symbolic chest thumping or pandering.
      - toomuchtodo 5y ago
        If your goal is to phase out combustion, why would you allow it regardless of purchase price and taxes? Otherwise, you'll have consumers who might buy combustion vehicles, price be damned. EDIT: @throwaway0a5e, the approach does not need to "fly" everywhere, just enough jurisdictions where automakers have no choice but to make EVs because the combustion market is no longer large enough to be a sustainable business, just as California sets emissions standards for the US [1] (as automakers don't want to build "California" and "non-California" vehicles). Combustion vehicle bans at scale [2] get us to a combustion vehicle manufacturing death spiral faster. It is clear that cities and countries find value in combustion vehicle bans based on them being announced, codified into law, etc [1]. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/04/26/california-car-climate-waiver/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/04/2... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehicles#Places_with_planned_fossil-fuel_vehicle_bans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic...
        throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        >If your goal is to phase out combustion, why would you allow it regardless of purchase price and taxes? If statistically nobody's doing it and there's statistically no harm coming from it there's no reason to ban it. Your approach might fly in singapore but western nations generally think of themselves as free nations where everything is allowed unless there's a good reason for it not to be. > you'll have consumers who might buy combustion vehicles, price be damned. Those people would just track down a used vehicle. >just enough jurisdictions where automakers have no choice but to make EVs But if the consumers are already buying exclusively EVs and the OEMs are catering to those consumers what's the point of the ban? Nobody will be making gas cars if nobody is selling gas cars. A ban serves no end other than pandering to authoritarians at that point since the thing we wanted to get rid of is already gone.
        vetinari 5y ago
        While I agree with your general points, one minor detail: ICE vehicles will be manufactured long after western countries ban them. Western car companies will continue making them too, they won't abandon markets that will still buy them: Asia, Latin America, Africa. There people don't have resources nor infrastructure for EVs, so ICEs will continue to be used there.
willvarfar 5y ago
Knowing that gas cars have a limited future and can foresee running costs rising sharply while resale value plummets incentivizes people to buy electric already.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  Sure, but why not ban ICE before we expect them to be obsolete?
  - detaro 5y ago
    Do you really expect ICEs to become completely obsolete in the next 4 years?
    - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
      I'm taking about banning ICE sales of light vehicles, and yes, I do expect such sales to be near zero in Norway in about 4 years -- with or without a ban. I'm not alone: https://electrek.co/2021/09/23/norway-bans-gas-cars-in-2025-but-trends-point-toward-100-ev-sales-as-early-as-april/ https://electrek.co/2021/09/23/norway-bans-gas-cars-in-2025-...
teej 5y ago
2025 is not that far off though. It’s a hell of a lot closer than 2050. Easy to ignore political promises that come into effect after the politician will be dead.
bdcravens 5y ago
> The politicians set a date at which they assume EV's will be technically and economically superior and have already won in the market. It seems they have already won in the market: "14 of the top 15 cars in Norway are all-electric" > because they are never going to actually force a sizeable population to give up their cars This ban doesn't affect current vehicles, only new sales.
- cm2187 5y ago
  > It seems they have already won in the market By gas cars being taxes to death. You can call that a "market" if you want.
  - Happycars 5y ago
    It's the other way around. The car taxes have always been there, but EVs have been incentivized through exceptions from those taxes, plus other benefits (use of bus lanes etc).
    - cm2187 5y ago
      How is that different? One is taxed heavily, the other not.
  - xoa 5y ago
    >By gas cars being taxes to death. As opposed to being allowed to externalize their emissions to the death of the rest of us? I agree that current taxing of ICE vehicles is not optimal, what should happen is that gasoline is forced to be carbon neutral and pollution costs associated with lubricants and other fluids are built into the prices of those too, but the present situation near universally has been the opposite extreme where ICE costs aren't internalized one bit, and in fact often actively subsidized. >You can call that a "market" if you want. I will, since I know what a "market" actually is. Free markets are creations of government and tools of society, ultra scalable economic optimization algorithms. They require being reasonably far along the spectrum of things like cost internalization and information symmetry, the core point is that the price embodies all the costs as well as any floors society desires. That way each individual purchaser can allocate their own resources in as optimal way as possible. The current anthropogenic global warming mess is precisely because we don't have a Free Market in vehicles, electricity, etc since they're allowed to dump an enormous amount of their costs onto everyone with no reflection in the sticker price. The result being trillions and trillions of dollars/euros all of us are and will have to pay to deal with the mess. And of course some of the damage will be irreversible at any price.
francisofascii 5y ago
Just to be clear, they are planning on banning the sale of gas cars. It is not like people will have to "give up" their existing gas cars.
- InitialLastName 5y ago
  Just to be clear, they aren't banning the sale of gas cars. FTA: > This is a lot earlier than their 2025 target (which, to be clear, is not a legal requirement yet, more of a soft target agreed upon by Norway’s government).
Happycars 5y ago
Only 15 % of the 2020 car sales here in Norway were pure ICE. Roughly 55 % was pure electric. EV has been strongly incentivized politically for 10-15 years or so. 60 % of the total car pool is electric (not sure if that includes hybrids). In short, I'd say you're missing the mark. Edit: source is elbil.no

kgwgk 5y ago

If they are economically superior here is thanks to politicians though.

fallingknife 5y ago
Yeah I'll give you that. Norway has excellent policies on EV's. I just hate these symbolic "bans."
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  The bans are not symbolic. They are signals to automakers that there won't be a market for their legacy products. This gives them time to shift their supply chain towards producing EVs. The bans can always be pulled forward if the market evolves faster than anticipated. If EV sales in Norway continue to trend at 100% past April, Norway can pull forward its ban to "immediately." They could also accelerate petroleum station phase outs as it would not impact the EV fleet.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    >If EV sales in Norway continue to trend at 100% past April, Norway can pull forward its ban to "immediately. Why would they need to do that? If EV sales trend at ~100% nearly continuously then there is no reason to ban anything unless the goal of the ban is symbolic chest thumping or pandering.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      If your goal is to phase out combustion, why would you allow it regardless of purchase price and taxes? Otherwise, you'll have consumers who might buy combustion vehicles, price be damned. EDIT: @throwaway0a5e, the approach does not need to "fly" everywhere, just enough jurisdictions where automakers have no choice but to make EVs because the combustion market is no longer large enough to be a sustainable business, just as California sets emissions standards for the US [1] (as automakers don't want to build "California" and "non-California" vehicles). Combustion vehicle bans at scale [2] get us to a combustion vehicle manufacturing death spiral faster. It is clear that cities and countries find value in combustion vehicle bans based on them being announced, codified into law, etc [1]. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/04/26/california-car-climate-waiver/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/04/2... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehicles#Places_with_planned_fossil-fuel_vehicle_bans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic...
      - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        >If your goal is to phase out combustion, why would you allow it regardless of purchase price and taxes? If statistically nobody's doing it and there's statistically no harm coming from it there's no reason to ban it. Your approach might fly in singapore but western nations generally think of themselves as free nations where everything is allowed unless there's a good reason for it not to be. > you'll have consumers who might buy combustion vehicles, price be damned. Those people would just track down a used vehicle. >just enough jurisdictions where automakers have no choice but to make EVs But if the consumers are already buying exclusively EVs and the OEMs are catering to those consumers what's the point of the ban? Nobody will be making gas cars if nobody is selling gas cars. A ban serves no end other than pandering to authoritarians at that point since the thing we wanted to get rid of is already gone.
        vetinari 5y ago
        While I agree with your general points, one minor detail: ICE vehicles will be manufactured long after western countries ban them. Western car companies will continue making them too, they won't abandon markets that will still buy them: Asia, Latin America, Africa. There people don't have resources nor infrastructure for EVs, so ICEs will continue to be used there.

willvarfar 5y ago

Knowing that gas cars have a limited future and can foresee running costs rising sharply while resale value plummets incentivizes people to buy electric already.

rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
Sure, but why not ban ICE before we expect them to be obsolete?
- detaro 5y ago
  Do you really expect ICEs to become completely obsolete in the next 4 years?
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    I'm taking about banning ICE sales of light vehicles, and yes, I do expect such sales to be near zero in Norway in about 4 years -- with or without a ban. I'm not alone: https://electrek.co/2021/09/23/norway-bans-gas-cars-in-2025-but-trends-point-toward-100-ev-sales-as-early-as-april/ https://electrek.co/2021/09/23/norway-bans-gas-cars-in-2025-...

teej 5y ago

2025 is not that far off though. It’s a hell of a lot closer than 2050. Easy to ignore political promises that come into effect after the politician will be dead.

bdcravens 5y ago

> The politicians set a date at which they assume EV's will be technically and economically superior and have already won in the market. It seems they have already won in the market: "14 of the top 15 cars in Norway are all-electric" > because they are never going to actually force a sizeable population to give up their cars This ban doesn't affect current vehicles, only new sales.

cm2187 5y ago
> It seems they have already won in the market By gas cars being taxes to death. You can call that a "market" if you want.
- Happycars 5y ago
  It's the other way around. The car taxes have always been there, but EVs have been incentivized through exceptions from those taxes, plus other benefits (use of bus lanes etc).
  - cm2187 5y ago
    How is that different? One is taxed heavily, the other not.
- xoa 5y ago
  >By gas cars being taxes to death. As opposed to being allowed to externalize their emissions to the death of the rest of us? I agree that current taxing of ICE vehicles is not optimal, what should happen is that gasoline is forced to be carbon neutral and pollution costs associated with lubricants and other fluids are built into the prices of those too, but the present situation near universally has been the opposite extreme where ICE costs aren't internalized one bit, and in fact often actively subsidized. >You can call that a "market" if you want. I will, since I know what a "market" actually is. Free markets are creations of government and tools of society, ultra scalable economic optimization algorithms. They require being reasonably far along the spectrum of things like cost internalization and information symmetry, the core point is that the price embodies all the costs as well as any floors society desires. That way each individual purchaser can allocate their own resources in as optimal way as possible. The current anthropogenic global warming mess is precisely because we don't have a Free Market in vehicles, electricity, etc since they're allowed to dump an enormous amount of their costs onto everyone with no reflection in the sticker price. The result being trillions and trillions of dollars/euros all of us are and will have to pay to deal with the mess. And of course some of the damage will be irreversible at any price.

francisofascii 5y ago

Just to be clear, they are planning on banning the sale of gas cars. It is not like people will have to "give up" their existing gas cars.

InitialLastName 5y ago
Just to be clear, they aren't banning the sale of gas cars. FTA: > This is a lot earlier than their 2025 target (which, to be clear, is not a legal requirement yet, more of a soft target agreed upon by Norway’s government).

Happycars 5y ago

Only 15 % of the 2020 car sales here in Norway were pure ICE. Roughly 55 % was pure electric. EV has been strongly incentivized politically for 10-15 years or so. 60 % of the total car pool is electric (not sure if that includes hybrids). In short, I'd say you're missing the mark. Edit: source is elbil.no