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Isn't that a strange thing, considering Norway is vast, has low population density especially in the north, and has own oil resources available?

FourthProtocol 5y ago
Scandinavia in general takes global warming more seriously than most other countries on the planet. And so this isn't strange at all. The whole of Europe is amping up alternatives to petrol- and diesel-based transportation, from e-bikes, cargo e-bikes, e-scooters to Teslas and electric Porsches (Taycan), and anything inbetween.
- lastofthemojito 5y ago
  I'm not sure about the whole of Europe, but certainly the richer countries. https://www.acea.auto/press-release/electric-cars-10-eu-countries-do-not-have-a-single-charging-point-per-100km-of-road/ https://www.acea.auto/press-release/electric-cars-10-eu-coun...
Unbeliever69 5y ago
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianpalmer/2021/06/19/why-norway-leads-in-evs-and-the-role-played-by-cheap-renewable-electricity/?sh=2d863e28275f https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianpalmer/2021/06/19/why-norway...
Syonyk 5y ago
Their tax structure on vehicles is such that a loaded Tesla costs about the same as a Civic - the taxes (that are exempt on EVs) are quite massive on new cars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_Norway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_N... has extensive details, but they've got a set of incentives that exceedingly favor BEVs.
digikata 5y ago
One way to avoid the resource curse is to use the bounty of the resource to develop diversified dependencies/capabilities for a future when that resource runs out or is devalued.
tuatoru 5y ago
Norway is wealthy thanks to selling fossil fuels. Norwegians feel guilty about that, but not guilty enough to stop selling them. This is essentially performative environmentalism from them. Still, it will help other countries by throwing up unforeseen problems in all-electric ground transportation, and some solutions.
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  I don't think it's a country of virtue signallers as you think, just people who like to get the best bang for their buck. And gas cars as well as fuel get taxed so much, that buying electric makes sense for them. Who would've thunk, economic incentives help!? Sadly in many other places the deciding economic incentives are the ones the politicians get from the oil and ICE car industry.
  - bagacrap 5y ago
    arguably, taxes are the government's way of making the decision for the people, so if by "Norway" gp more accurately meant "the government of Norway", you haven't refuted their claims
    - matsemann 5y ago
      We (as in the Norwegian population) have voted for politicians supporting this, though. At the election a month ago, it was just a thousand or so votes from being an incredible amount of green representatives.
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    The claim is not that the individuals buying cars are signalling, it is the public policy (incentivizing individual EV ownership while exporting carbon emissions) which is hypocritical.
    - opinion-is-bad 5y ago
      Norway also spends a lot of energy criticizing foreign regimes for attempting to follow the same path as Norway; prosperity through natural resource extraction. It’s great that Norway has gotten rich enough to turn the corner, but not every country is so fortunate.
shkkmo 5y ago
Norway isn't really that vast. It's about the size of New Mexico but has twice the population density.
- dagw 5y ago
  It's about the size of New Mexico It is however much more spread out. Driving from the northernmost to southern most town of New Mexico is ~700 km. Driving from the southern most to northern most town of Norway is over 2300 km, or about the same has from the southernmost town of New Mexico to the Canadian border.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    It's not about the max travelable distance in the country but the max distance actually traveled for most trips. The higher density (and population concentration in the south) reduces the latter and makes maintaining a charging network much more practical (their high adoption rate also help a lot with that.) Edit: The reason why this is the important measure is because what people care about is how often their trips require N charging stops not the maximum number of charging stops they might have to make.
    - tannhaeuser 5y ago
      But what about those living in the north, in the Fjell, and those working in remote spots such as forests? Are those really served well by EVs, and is it really all that sustainable to subsidy EV?
kmonsen 5y ago
That's why it's not going to be 100%. Just someone looking at a graph and extrapolating.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
They are also rich to the tune of $200k saved in the nations coffers for every citizen.
- nerdawson 5y ago
  The UK and Norway found oil in the North Sea around the same time. Norway used that revenue to create the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. The UK squandered it on tax cuts.
- robotresearcher 5y ago
  That's an awful lot of money. The US National Debt is around $80K per US citizen. The War in Afghanistan cost around $7K per US citizen, based on numbers from Wikipedia.
tobinfricke 5y ago
Norway has plentiful hydropower, so electric cars do make sense there. They do have huge crude oil reserves, but do they have any refining capability?
- magicalhippo 5y ago
  > do they have any refining capability Only two[1], but one of them is somewhat big[2], producing 4x the domestic consumption of gasoline. [1]: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oljeraffineri#Oljeraffinerier_i_Norge https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oljeraffineri#Oljeraffinerier_... [2]: https://www.equinor.com/en/what-we-do/terminals-and-refineries.html https://www.equinor.com/en/what-we-do/terminals-and-refineri...
- elygre 5y ago
  It seems the answer is yes. There are two refineries. According to https://www.equinor.com/en/what-we-do/terminals-and-refineries.html https://www.equinor.com/en/what-we-do/terminals-and-refineri..., Mongstad (the larger of the two) has capacity: "Petrol (gasoline) production at Mongstad is 4 times Norwegian domestic consumption"
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
dogma1138 5y ago
When a Models S costs about as much as a Mazda 3… what would you buy?

FourthProtocol 5y ago

Scandinavia in general takes global warming more seriously than most other countries on the planet. And so this isn't strange at all. The whole of Europe is amping up alternatives to petrol- and diesel-based transportation, from e-bikes, cargo e-bikes, e-scooters to Teslas and electric Porsches (Taycan), and anything inbetween.

lastofthemojito 5y ago
I'm not sure about the whole of Europe, but certainly the richer countries. https://www.acea.auto/press-release/electric-cars-10-eu-countries-do-not-have-a-single-charging-point-per-100km-of-road/ https://www.acea.auto/press-release/electric-cars-10-eu-coun...

Unbeliever69 5y ago

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianpalmer/2021/06/19/why-norway-leads-in-evs-and-the-role-played-by-cheap-renewable-electricity/?sh=2d863e28275f https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianpalmer/2021/06/19/why-norway...

Syonyk 5y ago

Their tax structure on vehicles is such that a loaded Tesla costs about the same as a Civic - the taxes (that are exempt on EVs) are quite massive on new cars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_Norway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_N... has extensive details, but they've got a set of incentives that exceedingly favor BEVs.

digikata 5y ago

One way to avoid the resource curse is to use the bounty of the resource to develop diversified dependencies/capabilities for a future when that resource runs out or is devalued.

tuatoru 5y ago

Norway is wealthy thanks to selling fossil fuels. Norwegians feel guilty about that, but not guilty enough to stop selling them. This is essentially performative environmentalism from them. Still, it will help other countries by throwing up unforeseen problems in all-electric ground transportation, and some solutions.

bellyfullofbac 5y ago
I don't think it's a country of virtue signallers as you think, just people who like to get the best bang for their buck. And gas cars as well as fuel get taxed so much, that buying electric makes sense for them. Who would've thunk, economic incentives help!? Sadly in many other places the deciding economic incentives are the ones the politicians get from the oil and ICE car industry.
- bagacrap 5y ago
  arguably, taxes are the government's way of making the decision for the people, so if by "Norway" gp more accurately meant "the government of Norway", you haven't refuted their claims
  - matsemann 5y ago
    We (as in the Norwegian population) have voted for politicians supporting this, though. At the election a month ago, it was just a thousand or so votes from being an incredible amount of green representatives.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  The claim is not that the individuals buying cars are signalling, it is the public policy (incentivizing individual EV ownership while exporting carbon emissions) which is hypocritical.
  - opinion-is-bad 5y ago
    Norway also spends a lot of energy criticizing foreign regimes for attempting to follow the same path as Norway; prosperity through natural resource extraction. It’s great that Norway has gotten rich enough to turn the corner, but not every country is so fortunate.

shkkmo 5y ago

Norway isn't really that vast. It's about the size of New Mexico but has twice the population density.

dagw 5y ago
It's about the size of New Mexico It is however much more spread out. Driving from the northernmost to southern most town of New Mexico is ~700 km. Driving from the southern most to northern most town of Norway is over 2300 km, or about the same has from the southernmost town of New Mexico to the Canadian border.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  It's not about the max travelable distance in the country but the max distance actually traveled for most trips. The higher density (and population concentration in the south) reduces the latter and makes maintaining a charging network much more practical (their high adoption rate also help a lot with that.) Edit: The reason why this is the important measure is because what people care about is how often their trips require N charging stops not the maximum number of charging stops they might have to make.
  - tannhaeuser 5y ago
    But what about those living in the north, in the Fjell, and those working in remote spots such as forests? Are those really served well by EVs, and is it really all that sustainable to subsidy EV?

kmonsen 5y ago

That's why it's not going to be 100%. Just someone looking at a graph and extrapolating.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

They are also rich to the tune of $200k saved in the nations coffers for every citizen.

nerdawson 5y ago
The UK and Norway found oil in the North Sea around the same time. Norway used that revenue to create the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. The UK squandered it on tax cuts.
robotresearcher 5y ago
That's an awful lot of money. The US National Debt is around $80K per US citizen. The War in Afghanistan cost around $7K per US citizen, based on numbers from Wikipedia.

tobinfricke 5y ago

Norway has plentiful hydropower, so electric cars do make sense there. They do have huge crude oil reserves, but do they have any refining capability?

magicalhippo 5y ago
> do they have any refining capability Only two[1], but one of them is somewhat big[2], producing 4x the domestic consumption of gasoline. [1]: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oljeraffineri#Oljeraffinerier_i_Norge https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oljeraffineri#Oljeraffinerier_... [2]: https://www.equinor.com/en/what-we-do/terminals-and-refineries.html https://www.equinor.com/en/what-we-do/terminals-and-refineri...
elygre 5y ago
It seems the answer is yes. There are two refineries. According to https://www.equinor.com/en/what-we-do/terminals-and-refineries.html https://www.equinor.com/en/what-we-do/terminals-and-refineri..., Mongstad (the larger of the two) has capacity: "Petrol (gasoline) production at Mongstad is 4 times Norwegian domestic consumption"
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

dogma1138 5y ago

When a Models S costs about as much as a Mazda 3… what would you buy?