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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.