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Norway on track to be first to go all-electric
- walthamstow 2y agoThey are blessed with oil, geothermal, and wind and, unlike the UK, didn’t piss the North Sea oil money up the wall on frivolous tax cuts.
- the_duke 2y agoDon't forget hydro, I think it's 40+% of production in Norway.
- magicalhippo 2y agoIn terms of electricity production it's more like 88% currently[1], along with a total reservoir capacity of 70% of annual production. [1]: https://energifaktanorge.no/en/norsk-energiforsyning/kraftproduksjon/ https://energifaktanorge.no/en/norsk-energiforsyning/kraftpr...
- gspr 2y ago> Don't forget hydro, I think it's 40+% of production in Norway. Hydro is the first row in the table at [1], so it's 84% by capacity (second column) or 87% by typical annual production (third column). [1] The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate: https://www.nve.no/energi/energisystem/kraftproduksjon/ https://www.nve.no/energi/energisystem/kraftproduksjon/
- vinni2 2y agoMore like 95+%
- walthamstow 2y agoSorry I actually meant hydro, not geothermal!
- gazchop 2y agoAnd places you can park your car outside your house, unlike the UK.
- gspr 2y ago> And places you can park your car outside your house, unlike the UK. This is a common misconception that probably stems from Norway's low population density. However, much of the country is very sparsely inhabited, and the urbanization levels are almost exactly the same as the UK's [1]. A large proportion of the population lives in multi-unit homes with limited street parking, at comparable densities to the UK. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_sovereign_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_sovereign_stat...
- gazchop 2y agoInteresting. So why does it work for Norway but not in the UK? My options are: 1. Drive to the local high power charging station and pay more than a tank of petrol for half the range. Oh that's it.
- gspr 2y agoShared (either private or public) parking very often has chargers. You swipe a tag to sort out billing by user. The cost at these chargers is typically electricity cost + maintenance. Plus lots of employers offer charging at work (usually not free, but the convenience is the point). Edit: This can be read as me telling the other guy how he should sort things where he lives. That wasn't the intention - I'm describing the situation here in Norway.
- ginko 2y agoI give you oil, wind (and hydro) but geothermal? There isn't any serious geothermic activity afaik. Certainly nothing like Iceland but even the UK has hot springs (nothing like that in Norway).
- walthamstow 2y agoSorry I actually meant hydro, not geothermal!
- Etheryte 2y agoMany countries tick those boxes but aren't anywhere close to doing the same reasonable things with them. The main thing Norway has been blessed with has been smart about it, as opposed to having all of the profits go to private hands.
- let_me_post_0 2y agoI think it's because Americans have a hard time understanding Norwegian culture enough to manipulate them. Look at Canada and the UK for examples to the opposite.
- Moldoteck 2y agothey are also taxing gas cars and gas itself to a level that having e-car is just cheaper, even without tax cuts that are reduced now. Basically fossil overtaxation helps compensating for e-car undertaxation. You don't need oil/geo reserves for that. What really helps is huge hydro resources which are giving extremely cheap rates constantly (except close to DK/UK interlinks)
- berkes 2y agoPissing it up the wall is exactly what the Netherlands did with it's now bygone wealth of natural gas. It's why the Netherlands (cold, cloudy, wet climate) is Europe's primary bell-pepper, tomato, cucumber etc producer all year through. It's why it's the largest producer of mushrooms worldwide. Has massive cut-flower exports all year long. Energy for greenhouses and mushroom farms is provided for basically free. Ironically, now that the gas is (economically) finished, the government is essentially buying Russian and Norwegian gas with tax money (not literally, but through subsidies). So your Dutch tomatoes (aside from being tasteless) or the mushrooms on your pizza are for a large part this cheap because Dutch taxpayers paid for the energy to grow them.
- arrowsmith 2y agoIronic that the first country to ditch ICE cars is also a country whose economy is heavily dependent on fossil fuel extraction. If everyone else switches to EVs, where will Norway get the money for its own EVs?
- eptcyka 2y agoThey have the best managed sovereing wealth fund - it exists only to hedge against their oil reserves.
- runsWphotons 2y agoWhat do they invest in?
- ceejayoz 2y agoThe future wellbeing of their populace?
- Ylpertnodi 2y ago...Oh, the humanity!
- petecorreia 2y agoEssentially everything. On average they own 1.5 percent of all listed companies.
- pavlov 2y agoImagine if Americans had a national fund like that. USA has 60x the population of Norway. So the American equivalent would be rich enough to own… 90% of all listed companies in the world! That’s just a provocative thought experiment. But it highlights the stark difference between how nations allocate their wealth. Some have centibillionaire oligarchs and airplane carriers and space programs, others have well-managed sovereign wealth funds and universal healthcare.
- jansan 2y agoGive me the hydro power of Norway and I will make any country all-electric. Even if CO2 was great for our planet, it would make sense for Norway to go all-electric and export the oil. Let's just face it, they are lucky (and smart). Good for them, but people must stop putting pressure on others with this "ooh, why don't you do it like Norway?".
- Toutouxc 2y agoIMO, more than “how a country can run entirely on EVs” is an example of “how EVs can work for most of the people from an entire country”
- audunw 2y ago> Give me the hydro power of Norway and I will make any country all-electric. Fun fact: the consumer taxes on electricity is higher than the taxes on gasoline (the tax percentage, not the total amount paid). It's more efficient to burn oil in a oil power plant than to make gasoline and burn it in an ICE engine. So EVs make economic sense in the long term for any country. It's just the inertia of the existing energy infrastructures holding back the transition. > but people must stop putting pressure on others Many countries and individuals are making a bunch of terrible excuses for why they're not transitioning to EVs, which makes absolutely no sense at all given what Norway has achieved. Norway is not THAT special. It's certainly not an ideal country for EVs. The cities there DO have apartments without off-street parking. The winter is brutal on range. Norwegians loves to drive hours and hours up to their mountain cabins in winter to ski - often with a huge ski box on top that create a lot of drag. Or they drive far down the European continent in summer, as far as Croatia for instance (to the Americans out there: Norway is part of Schengen. You can drive/travel freely anywhere in Europe without passport control) And it makes even less sense for a country that does not have its own oil and fuel production to be dependent on ICE cars. EVs grants a path to full energy independence. ICE does not. Of course other countries will and can not move quite as fast as Norway. The conditions are different. That goes without saying. Nobody is blaming other countries for being behind. But that's not an excuse for doing little-to-nothing to push the transition forwards.
- oldpersonintx 2y ago[dead]
- MandieD 2y agoUnlike just about every other major oil producer (my own home country, the US, included), Norway has strictly followed the rule, "never get high on your own supply." Fuel has long been more heavily taxed than in, say, Germany, which already has relatively high fuel taxes, and only a small percentage of the petroleum revenues received by the government are allowed to be spent directly (something like 4%, if I remember right). The rest has gone into that enormous sovereign wealth fund for the day the party ends.
- jansan 2y agoName another oil producer that can fully cover it's local demand with hydro power.
- newsclues 2y agoCanada, probably could, if not for the exception incompetence of it's leadership over decades.
- SebFender 2y agoThat's debatable - Quebec generates close to 50% of Canada's Hydro power and has been part of world leaders in the field. The province has been pretty competent in the past decades - of course with challenges - but the rest of Canada would be lost without Hydro-Quebec being behind most projects and investments (expertise, management, financing...)
- newsclues 2y agoOntario has lots of hydro including Niagara Falls, BC has the new site C. What I’m saying is Canada has the potential to generate more hydroelectricity but environmental concerns largely delay or prevent further expansion.
- MandieD 2y agoThere's a difference between "make sure local energy needs are provided for" and "encourage overuse and expansion of local energy needs by barely taxing" (the US, and to a lesser degree, Canada), or even "subsidizing overuse via artificially-low prices" (much of OPEC).
- OptionX 2y agoDon't electric cars do especially bad with the cold? How do they deal with it?
- jaapz 2y agoCar batteries are temperature controlled, and have been for quite a while now
- jgilias 2y agoIt’s mentioned in the article. You generally expect something like a 20% range drop. With the range that you get these days (looking at you KIA EV6), it’s really not a problem. Also, an EV never fails to start in cold weather. Which is a definite plus.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dagw 2y agoMost of Norway (or at least the parts where most people live) doesn't actually get that cold, thanks to the Gulf Stream. Certainly not as cold as the colder parts of the northern US or Canada can get.
- illwrks 2y agoThinking longer term, what will happen to gas stations? I assume they will still be needed but the economic incentives will mean less and less use? Europe being a large landmass what about if someone drives their gas car from one country to another- is there a risk of being stranded?
- audunw 2y ago> Thinking longer term, what will happen to gas stations? We're already seeing gas stations in Norway that has replaced most of their pumps with fast chargers. Some of them just have one or two gas pumps left. This is happening really fast since the people who drive the most are among the first to switch to EVs. I think sale of gasoline is falling by around 30% every year. Nobody is letting a brand new EV gather dust in the garage as a secondary car. They're all out on the road. Yeah, at some point you will have to plan a trip with an ICE car to make sure you find gas stations along the way. In the really long term there won't be any gas pumps at all. Some specialty stores will probably sell gasoline and diesel in a jerry can, for enthusiasts that maintain and drive old cars for fun. This is why I think the transition will happen much faster than people anticipate, once the market has reached a certain critical mass. Imagine what people will think when they read about gas pumps disappearing in Norway or the Netherlands and other regions with high EV adoption. The thought of not easily being able to get gasoline for your new ICE car in a decade or two will probably push people to be almost irrational in their avoidance of buying a new ICE car. Cutting the sale price won't help much. The sale of new ICE vehicles will fall like a rock. The sale of EVs will not rise as fast as the fall of ICE. People will try to hold on to their old ICE cars for longer rather than buying a new car. Which isn't a bad thing.
- illwrks 2y agoGood insight, thank you. Your right… there will be be a point where it will flip and then you’ll need a route planning app for gas stations. I plan on holding onto Our gas car for another 6 to 10 years if I can stretch it and at that point of infrastructure is up to it I’ll get an electric one.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
- mtrovo 2y agoNorway's approach to electric vehicles really stands out. I've visited Oslo and it's so strange how the city feels so quiet with electric cars everywhere. Part of the reason is that they do not have a large ICE industry to protect, plus they have a resource curse relationship with oil that encourages looking beyond fossil fuels. Free of the need to defend older technology, they can prioritise charging networks, consumer incentives, and research. It is a clear example of how quickly a country can adopt EVs when it is not tied to the status quo. And if you want a bigger parallel just look at China. Their logic was really straightforward: instead of trying to catch up in an industry that’s on its way out, leapfrog and jump straight to the leading edge. Rather than spending loads of money battling well-established European players in the ICE segment for engineering and brand superiority, China poured resources into EV manufacturing and it seems it really paid out. There's no point perfecting a dying industry when you can own the future.
- numpad0 2y agoNote that while Norway is by absolute no means under developed, it is rather sparsely populated among nations. Population densities inside squiggly lines on maps of Earth vary by the orders of 10^3 to 10^4 per area. The US resides in 184th and Norway 224th spot respectively on the list[1]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...
- DataDaemon 2y ago1. Put a lot of taxes on gasoline and gasoline cars. 2. Put a lot of subsidies for electric cars. Done, time for the Counter Strike.
- dagw 2y agoYou really only have to do part 1. The actual subsidies on electric cars in Norway were quite minimal and have largely been rolled back. The most important 'subside' was always just that you didn't have to pay the same taxes as with ICE cars.
- dvorack101 2y agoNorway is a Petrostate. Nuff said. Note on Hydro power. This may change in the future when water supply runs out due to climate heat up. They might resort to using pumps to fill the reservoirs like other countries do (it's not all green). Also depending on a certain high oil price, the use of pumps to fill the reservoirs can be a business model. https://blog.sintef.com/energy/norwegian-pumped-storage-hydropower-could-help-stabilise-electricity-prices/ https://blog.sintef.com/energy/norwegian-pumped-storage-hydr...
- jemmyw 2y agoWe had friends over yesterday who were talking about their opinions that EVs wouldn't be successful and hydrogen would be the thing. It got me to thinking: why do we have these opinions? They're invariably wrong, influenced by all kinds of biases, and lead even very intelligent people to make very wrong statements and bad decisions. I've come to the conclusion that I can't know the answers and nor can anyone not involved intimately in the industry or policy (even then) so shortcut all these conversations with: buy what is best for you, don't try to predict the future.