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I live in a top EV market, Norway. ICE cars have been planned out for years now, and something like 96% of all new cars in Norway were EV last year. Basically

I live in a top EV market, Norway. ICE cars have been planned out for years now, and something like 96% of all new cars in Norway were EV last year. Basically, if you plan on keeping selling ICE cars, you're removing yourself from the market here. There's no future for new personal ICE cars here. I figure most other countries will be the same.

kleiba 7mo ago
Not Germany.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
jacquesm 7mo ago
> I live in a top EV market, Norway. It is the top EV market. > I figure most other countries will be the same. Most other countries are not Norway, it is a very wealthy, tiny market (150 K vehicles/year) with lots of hydro and not representative of the typical vehicle market in Western Europe and definitely not representative of the situation in the rest of the world. EVs are the future, there is no doubt about that. But that future will not arrive everywhere at the same point in time and Norway is very far ahead of the rest of the world due to a fairly unique set of circumstances: exporting your own oil and gas to be able to have a 'clean' (and up to recently heavily subsidized) transportation network is in a way just a gigantic bookkeeping trick.
- lukan 7mo ago
  No, it is a real invewtment in the right direction. The oil states in the middle east could have made such investments, too. Lots of EV powered by solar panels paid for with oil dollar. But they did not (in a significant way).
- SupremumLimit 7mo ago
  Sure, but there is also China where over half of new vehicle sales are EVs. Denmark is at 70%, Sweden, Iceland, Finland and the Netherlands are all above 50%, a bunch of other countries in the EU are at one third EVs. In India, 5% of sales are EVs but that is double of the year before and all the big car manufacturers in India are now offering EVs. Even Australia is at 14% after stalling on EVs for years. So change is unfolding quite quickly compared to previous years. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ev-share-new-car-sales-by-country-2019-vs-2025/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ev-share-new-car-sales-by-c...
  - moogly 7mo ago
    Those numbers include PHEV cars. As a BEV owner, I consider PHEV to be more ICE than BEV. BEV numbers are not as impressive, but we're getting there, slowly but surely. A bit slower than I would've hoped.
    - whateverboat 7mo ago
      In many countries, it will be PHEV for a long time because the electricity capacity and grid is just not there. India for example.
    - bluGill 7mo ago
      My Phev is about 80% ev. It uses a tank of gas a month, replacing a nearly identical vehicle (similar body and same engine - though other things have changed) that needed one or two tanks a week.
      - dalyons 7mo ago
        sadly thats not the norm. Various recent studies from the EU based on real world vehicle data show that actual savings from the PHEV category are about ~20% less emissions than a pure gas version. Aka, they are just gas cars. Despite manufacturers claiming ~70-80% for emissions credits. The category is today kind of a scam, in aggregate. It doesnt have to be - bigger battery strictly-series EREVs would likely show better numbers than the weak-ev phevs sold today.
- bwestergard 7mo ago
  "exporting your own oil and gas to be able to have a 'clean' (and up to recently heavily subsidized) transportation network is in a way just a gigantic bookkeeping trick" How so? If every oil exporter used some of their oil revenue to switch to EVs, that would, all things equal, hasten the transition to EVs. The U.S. is not doing that.
  - yndoendo 7mo ago
    I still find it funny when it comes to oil between the USA and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia started moving the electrical system to renewables where USA is doubling down on fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia is the drug dealer that knows you don't consumer your own supply unless you must were the USA consumes the crack they sell. My next vehicle will 100% be pure EV, not Tesla.
    - appreciatorBus 7mo ago
      > the drug dealer that knows you don't consumer your own supply unless you must So true. There's nothing incompatible at all with: a) realizing that earth has gifted you with a valuable but limited & polluting energy source b) realizing that you'd be foolish to get you own country hooked on it, but it's not a bad business if you can get other countries hooked on it. Instead we get oil rich areas seemingly determined to show off how much of their oil they can waste.
      - rob74 7mo ago
        Wow, so now the US oil barons who lobbied Trump to kill renewables and EVs are even worse than Mohammed "Bonesaw*" bin Salman Al Saud? That's really something, if you look at it that way... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khashoggi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khashog...
        jacquesm 7mo ago
        Either you're too smart for me or I just can't follow you, but could you please expand a bit on your comment? I find it hard to link it to the parent, but I realize that may be on me.
- speedgoose 7mo ago
  At least it doesn’t smell ICE fumes downtown. That’s neat.
  - nxm 7mo ago
    Haven’t smell fumes downtown in 30 years since catalytic converters became prevalent
    - Tagbert 7mo ago
      In the US, near a major roadway on a cold morning, the fumes are strong. Not every car or truck is maintained properly and running in cold weather really magnifies that effect.
    - speedgoose 7mo ago
      You can try to bike behind a hybrid during a cold winter morning.
    - dzhiurgis 7mo ago
      You might have very good smog checks. Here in NZ I've recently replaced my Tesla's HEPA air filters which includes carbon filter which. I've got them slightly cheaper from somewhat ok supplier. Turns out there's ton of fake filters out there (i.e. vacuum filters). I was suffering every day I was driving it. Smog is insane everywhere.
- expedition32 7mo ago
  Most of the profits come from rich countries. And even then especially the more expensive cars. (Personally I am fine driving a 10 year old shit box because for me it is just a means of going from A to B and rather spend my money on other things)
  - jacquesm 7mo ago
    My daily driver is approaching the ripe old age of 30, my main reason is a lack of software.
    - speedgoose 7mo ago
      I’m what part of the world do you live to have a carbureted car from the late 90s?
      - jacquesm 7mo ago
        Netherlands. And fuel injection has been a thing since the 1930s for Diesel and the 1950's for vehicles. Yes, it has an ECU and ooh, gollies there is software in that. But it's completely invisible from an interaction point of view, there are no screens, all the buttons just do what they are told, there are no 'upgrades', no bugs, interfaces, restarts and attempts to kill me through 'assistance'.
        speedgoose 7mo ago
        I understand the appeal. Do you use paper maps too or you have a smartphone on the dashboard ? That would be a bit cheating.
        jacquesm 7mo ago
        I know where I'm going :)
        antonvs 7mo ago
        It’s interesting to see how people who grew up with smartphones think. It’s entirely possible to get around without smartphones or paper maps. There are road signs, written directions, verbal directions. The main time I used to use a paper map was driving long distance trips in a foreign country.
- onlyrealcuzzo 7mo ago
  I mean - how are you defining most? Most countries are quite poor and/or have small populations and aren't buying many vehicles period. About ~45% of countries have smaller populations than Norway, and Norway is in the top ~25% of countries by size of the auto market... Most countries are not the China and India, yet they make up almost 45% of the global population. The US and China make up about 45% of the auto market... There's a lot of European, Asian, and Latin American countries that have more in common with Norway than they do with the US or China or India.
  - jacquesm 7mo ago
    Ok, we'll replace 'most' with 'all except for Norway'.
- pyuser583 7mo ago
  There is still one country that uses leaded gasoline for personal cars. For automobiles, the future comes very slowly.
  - skissane 7mo ago
    > There is still one country that uses leaded gasoline for personal cars. That was true five years ago, but no longer-Algeria, the last country to allow it, banned leaded petrol in 2021 - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58388810 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58388810
    - tialaramex 7mo ago
      It's actually not clear to me in what sense "banned" is used here. The UK never formally "banned" leaded petrol. They banned sales of new cars which need it, and then later told places which sell petrol that they can only have a small portion of their fuel as leaded, and then (as anticipated) market forces did the rest. AFAICT it would still be legal for the place on the bypass near me to sell leaded fuel but they don't because (a) the market is too small, not worth it and (b) as a result wholesalers don't offer the product, so if they wanted to sell it they can't get it anyway.
      - Symbiote 7mo ago
        https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/1998/70/oj/eng https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/1998/70/oj/eng This EU directive banned the sale of leaded petrol in the UK on 1 January 2000.
        tialaramex 7mo ago
        Hmm. The thing is, EU directives aren't themselves law, or rather, in a sense they are but they're laws for the EU member states, telling them that they need to legislate to achieve this thing but without specifying how. The EU can write legislation which is binding on actual citizens, but it mostly writes directives, like this, which just tell the member states to do the legislating. So, was this directive actually implemented by the UK before it left? Or did they go "Eh, we achieved the intended goal anyway, no action" ? This way the EU doesn't have to worry about weird edge cases where the EU wants to control Foozling of Doodads but it turns out that in Poland ordinary people often Foozle their own Doodad at home and so their approach needs to consider individual citizens who want to Foozle a Doodad, but in Ireland that's crazy and you pay one of a few dozen Registered Doodad Foozlers to do it at scale, requiring a very different regulation to achieve the same goal.
- jiveturkey 7mo ago
  > It is the top EV market. per-capita or by total volume? i ask because a sibling or child comment says that the number of cars sold in norway is pretty small (in part because the population is small). a quick google says 180k cars sold in norway in 2025 (we can round up to 100% EV) and 34M sold in China. It also says China has 50% EV sales. So by total volume Norway isn't close to the top.
- raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
  They seem to be solving the “Resource Curse” quite well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
- shiroiuma 7mo ago
  >But that future will not arrive everywhere at the same point in time and Norway is very far ahead of the rest of the world due to a fairly unique set of circumstances: exporting your own oil and gas to be able to have a 'clean' (and up to recently heavily subsidized) transportation network is in a way just a gigantic bookkeeping trick. Not really. Even in a hypothetical future where all road vehicles are electric, we'll still need fossil fuels for a while. For one thing, it's probably going to be a while before airplanes can go electric. And production of plastics will probably need petroleum for a long time.
  - bluGill 7mo ago
    Cars are the vast majortity of oil use though. The rest is more than a rounding error but not much more.
    - shiroiuma 7mo ago
      Air travel and shipping are more than a "rounding error". https://personal.ems.psu.edu/~pisupati/ACSOutreach/Petroleum_2.html https://personal.ems.psu.edu/~pisupati/ACSOutreach/Petroleum... Admittedly this data is a little old (20 years), but today's numbers probably aren't that different. It shows, out of US petroleum production, that only 47% is used for gasoline. 8% is used for jet fuel, 22% for diesel and heating oil, 5% for coke, 3% for asphalt, etc. 53% is not a "rounding error".
- rossjudson 7mo ago
  Top market? I'm pretty sure that's China. Speaking of bookkeeping tricks: Kneecapping renewable energy (wind), cancelling the EV future in the US, and then starting a war in the strait of hormuz will someday be acknowledged as the finest moment of the oil industry, maximizing profit in the face of all reason.
walthamstow 7mo ago
Norway is a very special case in that it has massive hydro energy resources and nobody lives there.
- reverius42 7mo ago
  > hydro energy resources What is a hydro energy resource, a river? Don't lots of countries have rivers? (If we're talking about hydroelectric power plants they've chosen to build, that's not exactly a resource -- and other countries could choose to build those too, right?)
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - lukan 7mo ago
    Norway has really a lots of rivers with lots of potential energy of the water, since it comes from the mountains at high altitude (Fjords). Some big slow moving river in a flat land on the other hand is not helping you here.
  - theappsecguy 7mo ago
    Building hydro energy requires a very specific geography. You can't just take any river and turn it into an efficient hydroplant.
  - ascorbic 7mo ago
    You need both the right geography and a lack of either people or democracy in the place you want to build it. That rules out new large hydro projects in most of Europe.
  - margalabargala 7mo ago
    Not just a river, a river plus either an elevation drop or a drownable valley. A river winding along a flat plain is not a hydro energy resource. A river in the same valley as your capital city is not a hydro energy resource.
- ascorbic 7mo ago
boringg 7mo ago
Interesting but North America has different needs for vehicles. Long time before our electrical systems to be able to compensate for that kind of whole sale change. Will be at least 20 years if it ever happens. I would also say that any ICE vehicle that has 0 subscription models, upgradable firmware, tracking software will probably have a value premium to it in the not distant future. FWIW downvoters - I have a PHEV - but I live in the real world and a likely future!
- reverius42 7mo ago
  > Long time before our electrical systems to be able to compensate for that kind of whole sale change. Will be at least 20 years if it ever happens. I don't know about the whole national electric grid, but at my house, I didn't really have to upgrade anything and didn't even notice an increase in electric bill when I started plugging in my EV. I don't think my car is even 20% of my household electricity usage. I'd hope we can increase our national grid's capability by at least 20% in the next 20 years. (Also, aren't datacenters causing that massive demand right now, whether or not the upgrades are even there yet? As I understand this is causing massive price increases?) > I would also say that any ICE vehicle that has 0 subscription models, upgradable firmware, tracking software will probably have a value premium to it in the not distant future. As you kind of hint at, whether or not the vehicle is EV or ICE has nothing to do with whether it has subscription models, tracking, etc. and car manufacturers are racing towards both of those things in a way that makes the drivetrain irrelevant.
  - boringg 7mo ago
    Two points. 1. Infra will need to upgrade in order to handle heavy charging in neighborhoods with wholesale change in the fleet. It would change our electrical use model considerably in terms of times of use -- and we would be adding all the energy used from gas powered cars to the electrical grid - which is somewhat significant. 2. While you are correct technically -- I think what I am implying is older cars (ICE) will be the ones without all the tracking and software - whereas all EVs will have that embedded as they are all relatively new. There is no world where they remove that from new car production.
themafia 7mo ago
That's the plan. The reality seems different: https://www.electrive.com/2025/01/09/norway-the-number-of-new-electric-trucks-declines/ https://www.electrive.com/2025/01/09/norway-the-number-of-ne...
paganel 7mo ago
You're Norway, you don't count. > I figure most other countries will be the same. I figure you're wrong on that one.
Yizahi 7mo ago
EVs are fine and dandy, but it is a luxury class of cars for now and it shows really. Most other countries are far far away from mass deployment of EVs or restricting ICE cars. EVs can win if either a) the car is cheaper than the same class ICE, or b) operational expenses of using EV car would be cheaper. Neither of which is happening yet. And the car do need to have some advantage, since EVs already come with inherent disadvantage of long and inconvenient charging, small batteries, limited locations for charging with buggy and broken stations, not working apps or cards etc.
- joe_mamba 7mo ago
  Yeah, visiting my ex-Gf family in Norway, I realized how much richer Norwegians are that it's not even funny. It's not really a market representative of the average buyer. Same how neither Switzerland, Luxembourg or Monaco are. I am living in a working class neighborhood of apartment buildings in West-central Europe with average to below average earners, and there's zero EVs parked here on the streets, basically 90% of people have old diesel cars. Only when you go towards the suburbs with rich(inherited wealth) people living in single family homes you see everyone has an EV. The distinction is quite clear, do you live in a house or have your own parking space and possibility to install your own charger? Then EV 100% no brainer. Otherwise people stick to ICE.
  - jacquesm 7mo ago
    I do live in a house, could easily afford an EV and have plenty of solar to keep it charged. And I still don't have one because all of these EVs feel like the worst of the computer world applied to automotive. The last thing I need is a computer on wheels and I'm old enough that I know my current car is likely my last. For my kids it is different, and I'm sure that they'll go electric at some point but I hope that they'll be able to do so without buying a mobile privacy violation instrument.
    - GuB-42 7mo ago
      The Dacia Spring proves that it doesn't have to be the case. The base version doesn't even have a touchscreen, let alone internet connectivity. It is a cheap car, in every sense of the word, but is shows that not every EV has to be like Tesla.
Slow_Hand 7mo ago
I have a tangential question. Do you find that snow banks near roads are appreciably less black and disgusting now that there are fewer ICE vehicles on the road? Growing up in America I have memories of our roadside snowbanks becoming black and saturated by vehicle exhaust and it always felt so gross to me. The back half of winter was characterized by blackened, salt-saturated puddles and banks. I wonder if the prevalence of EVs has made things less dirty in the winter.
- TremendousJudge 7mo ago
  isn't that at least partially caused by the rubber tire particles?
  - Slow_Hand 7mo ago
    Could be! I don't know enough to say what the ratio of exhaust to tire particulate is on the average road. In either case it's a good physical representation of how much particulate we are exposed to every day. Maybe having it trapped in dirty snowbanks is better than having it getting kicked up into the air during a dryer season.
    - jacquesm 7mo ago
      Road particles, brakes and tires dominate that massively. https://www.eiturbanmobility.eu/press-corner/nees-are-the-main-source-of-pollution-from-road-transport-new-study-finds/ https://www.eiturbanmobility.eu/press-corner/nees-are-the-ma...
      - wileydragonfly 7mo ago
        [flagged]
        jacquesm 7mo ago
        Maybe 'Dwarfed'? Dominated to the point of insignificance? Anyway, did you understand it?
coevcan 7mo ago
> 96% of all new cars in Norway were EV last year. Thats of course because people wanna go green and certainly has nothing to do with the 25% VAT exemption that ICE cars are subject to.
- foltik 7mo ago
  Yup, everyone else should be taking notes.
cladopa 7mo ago
Oh yeah, because Norway is very representative of the world... A country that is bigger than half Spain with 10 times less population with one of the lowest electrify prices of the entire world(5-8 dollars MWh) because of huge hydro resources. A country with huge capital reserves precisely because of oil resources.
- reppap 7mo ago
  His first sentence is literally disclaiming that he is in an outlier market.
somethoughts 7mo ago
My hot take for Japan is that hybrids make the most sense until one the major markets (US or all of EU) has significant traction with respect to ubiquitous EV charger infrastructure. Tesla can fund the project of making EV chargers ubiquitous in the US and make it make sense within the context of a profitable business plan. Chinese manufacturers can similarly make it make sense financially. Japanese auto makers who are heavily subsidized by the Japanese government can't easily fund the infrastructure project of making EV chargers ubiquitous in a foreign country like the US or EU and their home market is much smaller.
- hedora 7mo ago
  California has 1.6 charge stalls per gas nozzle. Does that count? I places like Japan (small, population dense, with small cars) you can use a 120V outlet to charge an EV. Most places have 240V household outlets, and can charge at least twice as fast. So, if you have a garage with electricity, infrastructure isn’t really an issue. Sooner or later it will be common to mandate a charger per residential parking spot. The chargers themselves are $200. The main costs are permitting and retrofitting, but that matters a lot less for new development. If one circuit per parking spot seems like a lot of infrastructure, consider the fact that most apartments have at least a half dozen circuits already.
jesterson 7mo ago
What would be the market like if there is no government intervention with subsidies - the free market? I doubt EV would take any significant share if that would be the case.
longislandguido 7mo ago
A country where you're looked down upon for driving a Focus RS or other "fun" car seems like a boring, austere place to be. Perhaps that's why we never hear about Norwegian car culture (as opposed to Germany and the US). Ferdinand Porsche would have resigned to building apple carts.
- dyauspitr 7mo ago
  What fun about an ICE vehicle. Loud, slow acceleration, pollution, poisoned garages, transmissions, maintenance, gas is 10x as expensive vs charging at home. It’s shit. My EV smokes Porsches when I need to overtake them. The only thing gas does better is higher range and quicker fill ups.
- reeredfdfdf 7mo ago
  US car culture has been dead for a long time, at least internationally. People like big American cars made in 50s - 70s for their looks, but since then all I can think of are oversized pickups, Nascar and Tesla which is getting eaten alive by Chinese competitors.
  - pepperoni_pizza 7mo ago
    That is unfortunately not the case - see all the ridiculous ginormous American pickup trucks invading Europe as a "look at me, I'm rich" or "look at me I'm (local equivalent to) MAGA" signifiers.
    - justin66 7mo ago
      Do most European cities allow those?
  - lan321 7mo ago
    The C8 is great, The Hellcat, Demon, etc are kinda US specific (won't be great on the curvier roads in Europe) but still cool. Modification/Tuning is very alive and well due to lack of regulation in comparison to Europe or pretty much anywhere else.. Car culture is getting killed everywhere because safety and comfort by far outweigh fun in gov priorities but I'm literally considering the US because I'll be able to drive whatever I want. Good luck finding someone running nitrous on the street in Europe nowadays, stretched bikes, engine swaps, etc. It all comes with administrative fees, a lot is forbidden and even if your documents are in order you'll get in trouble because police officers are not qualified or incentivized to deal with severely modified vehicles.
reeredfdfdf 7mo ago
Just cross the border to Sweden or Finland, and the share of EV's of all new cars drop from around 90 to something like 30-35%. The EV transition is going to take a while longer in most EU countries. Of course something to note is the absolute number of cars sold, which has dropped dramatically at least here in Finland. Most people who are priced out of new EV market simply don't buy any new car at all, and the average age of cars is climbing fast. Either way, few people are looking for new ICE vehicles. No point buying outdated tech new, when the used car market has perfectly good ICE vehicles that perform just the same.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
28304283409234 7mo ago
You live in the HackerNews of the real world. Not at all representative for the rest of the world. ;-)
simianparrot 7mo ago
We're struggling with the pollution levels from road dust now though. It's worse in most cities than it ever was with combustion engines. Yes there's lower Co2, but the dust and tire particles are actually more dangerous.
- ZeroGravitas 7mo ago
  So EVs that reduce both are a double win! EU is introducing regulations for this kind of emissions which will likely create a market for a few new techs that reduce it (reformulated tyres, modern drum brakes that capture dust, etc)

kleiba 7mo ago

Not Germany.

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

jacquesm 7mo ago

> I live in a top EV market, Norway. It is the top EV market. > I figure most other countries will be the same. Most other countries are not Norway, it is a very wealthy, tiny market (150 K vehicles/year) with lots of hydro and not representative of the typical vehicle market in Western Europe and definitely not representative of the situation in the rest of the world. EVs are the future, there is no doubt about that. But that future will not arrive everywhere at the same point in time and Norway is very far ahead of the rest of the world due to a fairly unique set of circumstances: exporting your own oil and gas to be able to have a 'clean' (and up to recently heavily subsidized) transportation network is in a way just a gigantic bookkeeping trick.

lukan 7mo ago
No, it is a real invewtment in the right direction. The oil states in the middle east could have made such investments, too. Lots of EV powered by solar panels paid for with oil dollar. But they did not (in a significant way).
SupremumLimit 7mo ago
Sure, but there is also China where over half of new vehicle sales are EVs. Denmark is at 70%, Sweden, Iceland, Finland and the Netherlands are all above 50%, a bunch of other countries in the EU are at one third EVs. In India, 5% of sales are EVs but that is double of the year before and all the big car manufacturers in India are now offering EVs. Even Australia is at 14% after stalling on EVs for years. So change is unfolding quite quickly compared to previous years. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ev-share-new-car-sales-by-country-2019-vs-2025/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ev-share-new-car-sales-by-c...
- moogly 7mo ago
  Those numbers include PHEV cars. As a BEV owner, I consider PHEV to be more ICE than BEV. BEV numbers are not as impressive, but we're getting there, slowly but surely. A bit slower than I would've hoped.
  - whateverboat 7mo ago
    In many countries, it will be PHEV for a long time because the electricity capacity and grid is just not there. India for example.
  - bluGill 7mo ago
    My Phev is about 80% ev. It uses a tank of gas a month, replacing a nearly identical vehicle (similar body and same engine - though other things have changed) that needed one or two tanks a week.
    - dalyons 7mo ago
      sadly thats not the norm. Various recent studies from the EU based on real world vehicle data show that actual savings from the PHEV category are about ~20% less emissions than a pure gas version. Aka, they are just gas cars. Despite manufacturers claiming ~70-80% for emissions credits. The category is today kind of a scam, in aggregate. It doesnt have to be - bigger battery strictly-series EREVs would likely show better numbers than the weak-ev phevs sold today.
bwestergard 7mo ago
"exporting your own oil and gas to be able to have a 'clean' (and up to recently heavily subsidized) transportation network is in a way just a gigantic bookkeeping trick" How so? If every oil exporter used some of their oil revenue to switch to EVs, that would, all things equal, hasten the transition to EVs. The U.S. is not doing that.
- yndoendo 7mo ago
  I still find it funny when it comes to oil between the USA and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia started moving the electrical system to renewables where USA is doubling down on fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia is the drug dealer that knows you don't consumer your own supply unless you must were the USA consumes the crack they sell. My next vehicle will 100% be pure EV, not Tesla.
  - appreciatorBus 7mo ago
    > the drug dealer that knows you don't consumer your own supply unless you must So true. There's nothing incompatible at all with: a) realizing that earth has gifted you with a valuable but limited & polluting energy source b) realizing that you'd be foolish to get you own country hooked on it, but it's not a bad business if you can get other countries hooked on it. Instead we get oil rich areas seemingly determined to show off how much of their oil they can waste.
    - rob74 7mo ago
      Wow, so now the US oil barons who lobbied Trump to kill renewables and EVs are even worse than Mohammed "Bonesaw*" bin Salman Al Saud? That's really something, if you look at it that way... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khashoggi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khashog...
      - jacquesm 7mo ago
        Either you're too smart for me or I just can't follow you, but could you please expand a bit on your comment? I find it hard to link it to the parent, but I realize that may be on me.
speedgoose 7mo ago
At least it doesn’t smell ICE fumes downtown. That’s neat.
- nxm 7mo ago
  Haven’t smell fumes downtown in 30 years since catalytic converters became prevalent
  - Tagbert 7mo ago
    In the US, near a major roadway on a cold morning, the fumes are strong. Not every car or truck is maintained properly and running in cold weather really magnifies that effect.
  - speedgoose 7mo ago
    You can try to bike behind a hybrid during a cold winter morning.
  - dzhiurgis 7mo ago
    You might have very good smog checks. Here in NZ I've recently replaced my Tesla's HEPA air filters which includes carbon filter which. I've got them slightly cheaper from somewhat ok supplier. Turns out there's ton of fake filters out there (i.e. vacuum filters). I was suffering every day I was driving it. Smog is insane everywhere.
expedition32 7mo ago
Most of the profits come from rich countries. And even then especially the more expensive cars. (Personally I am fine driving a 10 year old shit box because for me it is just a means of going from A to B and rather spend my money on other things)
- jacquesm 7mo ago
  My daily driver is approaching the ripe old age of 30, my main reason is a lack of software.
  - speedgoose 7mo ago
    I’m what part of the world do you live to have a carbureted car from the late 90s?
    - jacquesm 7mo ago
      Netherlands. And fuel injection has been a thing since the 1930s for Diesel and the 1950's for vehicles. Yes, it has an ECU and ooh, gollies there is software in that. But it's completely invisible from an interaction point of view, there are no screens, all the buttons just do what they are told, there are no 'upgrades', no bugs, interfaces, restarts and attempts to kill me through 'assistance'.
      - speedgoose 7mo ago
        I understand the appeal. Do you use paper maps too or you have a smartphone on the dashboard ? That would be a bit cheating.
        jacquesm 7mo ago
        I know where I'm going :)
        antonvs 7mo ago
        It’s interesting to see how people who grew up with smartphones think. It’s entirely possible to get around without smartphones or paper maps. There are road signs, written directions, verbal directions. The main time I used to use a paper map was driving long distance trips in a foreign country.
onlyrealcuzzo 7mo ago
I mean - how are you defining most? Most countries are quite poor and/or have small populations and aren't buying many vehicles period. About ~45% of countries have smaller populations than Norway, and Norway is in the top ~25% of countries by size of the auto market... Most countries are not the China and India, yet they make up almost 45% of the global population. The US and China make up about 45% of the auto market... There's a lot of European, Asian, and Latin American countries that have more in common with Norway than they do with the US or China or India.
- jacquesm 7mo ago
  Ok, we'll replace 'most' with 'all except for Norway'.
pyuser583 7mo ago
There is still one country that uses leaded gasoline for personal cars. For automobiles, the future comes very slowly.
- skissane 7mo ago
  > There is still one country that uses leaded gasoline for personal cars. That was true five years ago, but no longer-Algeria, the last country to allow it, banned leaded petrol in 2021 - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58388810 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58388810
  - tialaramex 7mo ago
    It's actually not clear to me in what sense "banned" is used here. The UK never formally "banned" leaded petrol. They banned sales of new cars which need it, and then later told places which sell petrol that they can only have a small portion of their fuel as leaded, and then (as anticipated) market forces did the rest. AFAICT it would still be legal for the place on the bypass near me to sell leaded fuel but they don't because (a) the market is too small, not worth it and (b) as a result wholesalers don't offer the product, so if they wanted to sell it they can't get it anyway.
    - Symbiote 7mo ago
      https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/1998/70/oj/eng https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/1998/70/oj/eng This EU directive banned the sale of leaded petrol in the UK on 1 January 2000.
      - tialaramex 7mo ago
        Hmm. The thing is, EU directives aren't themselves law, or rather, in a sense they are but they're laws for the EU member states, telling them that they need to legislate to achieve this thing but without specifying how. The EU can write legislation which is binding on actual citizens, but it mostly writes directives, like this, which just tell the member states to do the legislating. So, was this directive actually implemented by the UK before it left? Or did they go "Eh, we achieved the intended goal anyway, no action" ? This way the EU doesn't have to worry about weird edge cases where the EU wants to control Foozling of Doodads but it turns out that in Poland ordinary people often Foozle their own Doodad at home and so their approach needs to consider individual citizens who want to Foozle a Doodad, but in Ireland that's crazy and you pay one of a few dozen Registered Doodad Foozlers to do it at scale, requiring a very different regulation to achieve the same goal.
jiveturkey 7mo ago
> It is the top EV market. per-capita or by total volume? i ask because a sibling or child comment says that the number of cars sold in norway is pretty small (in part because the population is small). a quick google says 180k cars sold in norway in 2025 (we can round up to 100% EV) and 34M sold in China. It also says China has 50% EV sales. So by total volume Norway isn't close to the top.
raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
They seem to be solving the “Resource Curse” quite well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
shiroiuma 7mo ago
>But that future will not arrive everywhere at the same point in time and Norway is very far ahead of the rest of the world due to a fairly unique set of circumstances: exporting your own oil and gas to be able to have a 'clean' (and up to recently heavily subsidized) transportation network is in a way just a gigantic bookkeeping trick. Not really. Even in a hypothetical future where all road vehicles are electric, we'll still need fossil fuels for a while. For one thing, it's probably going to be a while before airplanes can go electric. And production of plastics will probably need petroleum for a long time.
- bluGill 7mo ago
  Cars are the vast majortity of oil use though. The rest is more than a rounding error but not much more.
  - shiroiuma 7mo ago
    Air travel and shipping are more than a "rounding error". https://personal.ems.psu.edu/~pisupati/ACSOutreach/Petroleum_2.html https://personal.ems.psu.edu/~pisupati/ACSOutreach/Petroleum... Admittedly this data is a little old (20 years), but today's numbers probably aren't that different. It shows, out of US petroleum production, that only 47% is used for gasoline. 8% is used for jet fuel, 22% for diesel and heating oil, 5% for coke, 3% for asphalt, etc. 53% is not a "rounding error".
rossjudson 7mo ago
Top market? I'm pretty sure that's China. Speaking of bookkeeping tricks: Kneecapping renewable energy (wind), cancelling the EV future in the US, and then starting a war in the strait of hormuz will someday be acknowledged as the finest moment of the oil industry, maximizing profit in the face of all reason.

walthamstow 7mo ago

Norway is a very special case in that it has massive hydro energy resources and nobody lives there.

reverius42 7mo ago
> hydro energy resources What is a hydro energy resource, a river? Don't lots of countries have rivers? (If we're talking about hydroelectric power plants they've chosen to build, that's not exactly a resource -- and other countries could choose to build those too, right?)
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- lukan 7mo ago
  Norway has really a lots of rivers with lots of potential energy of the water, since it comes from the mountains at high altitude (Fjords). Some big slow moving river in a flat land on the other hand is not helping you here.
- theappsecguy 7mo ago
  Building hydro energy requires a very specific geography. You can't just take any river and turn it into an efficient hydroplant.
- ascorbic 7mo ago
  You need both the right geography and a lack of either people or democracy in the place you want to build it. That rules out new large hydro projects in most of Europe.
- margalabargala 7mo ago
  Not just a river, a river plus either an elevation drop or a drownable valley. A river winding along a flat plain is not a hydro energy resource. A river in the same valley as your capital city is not a hydro energy resource.
ascorbic 7mo ago

boringg 7mo ago

Interesting but North America has different needs for vehicles. Long time before our electrical systems to be able to compensate for that kind of whole sale change. Will be at least 20 years if it ever happens. I would also say that any ICE vehicle that has 0 subscription models, upgradable firmware, tracking software will probably have a value premium to it in the not distant future. FWIW downvoters - I have a PHEV - but I live in the real world and a likely future!

reverius42 7mo ago
> Long time before our electrical systems to be able to compensate for that kind of whole sale change. Will be at least 20 years if it ever happens. I don't know about the whole national electric grid, but at my house, I didn't really have to upgrade anything and didn't even notice an increase in electric bill when I started plugging in my EV. I don't think my car is even 20% of my household electricity usage. I'd hope we can increase our national grid's capability by at least 20% in the next 20 years. (Also, aren't datacenters causing that massive demand right now, whether or not the upgrades are even there yet? As I understand this is causing massive price increases?) > I would also say that any ICE vehicle that has 0 subscription models, upgradable firmware, tracking software will probably have a value premium to it in the not distant future. As you kind of hint at, whether or not the vehicle is EV or ICE has nothing to do with whether it has subscription models, tracking, etc. and car manufacturers are racing towards both of those things in a way that makes the drivetrain irrelevant.
- boringg 7mo ago
  Two points. 1. Infra will need to upgrade in order to handle heavy charging in neighborhoods with wholesale change in the fleet. It would change our electrical use model considerably in terms of times of use -- and we would be adding all the energy used from gas powered cars to the electrical grid - which is somewhat significant. 2. While you are correct technically -- I think what I am implying is older cars (ICE) will be the ones without all the tracking and software - whereas all EVs will have that embedded as they are all relatively new. There is no world where they remove that from new car production.

themafia 7mo ago

That's the plan. The reality seems different: https://www.electrive.com/2025/01/09/norway-the-number-of-new-electric-trucks-declines/ https://www.electrive.com/2025/01/09/norway-the-number-of-ne...

paganel 7mo ago

You're Norway, you don't count. > I figure most other countries will be the same. I figure you're wrong on that one.

Yizahi 7mo ago

EVs are fine and dandy, but it is a luxury class of cars for now and it shows really. Most other countries are far far away from mass deployment of EVs or restricting ICE cars. EVs can win if either a) the car is cheaper than the same class ICE, or b) operational expenses of using EV car would be cheaper. Neither of which is happening yet. And the car do need to have some advantage, since EVs already come with inherent disadvantage of long and inconvenient charging, small batteries, limited locations for charging with buggy and broken stations, not working apps or cards etc.

joe_mamba 7mo ago
Yeah, visiting my ex-Gf family in Norway, I realized how much richer Norwegians are that it's not even funny. It's not really a market representative of the average buyer. Same how neither Switzerland, Luxembourg or Monaco are. I am living in a working class neighborhood of apartment buildings in West-central Europe with average to below average earners, and there's zero EVs parked here on the streets, basically 90% of people have old diesel cars. Only when you go towards the suburbs with rich(inherited wealth) people living in single family homes you see everyone has an EV. The distinction is quite clear, do you live in a house or have your own parking space and possibility to install your own charger? Then EV 100% no brainer. Otherwise people stick to ICE.
- jacquesm 7mo ago
  I do live in a house, could easily afford an EV and have plenty of solar to keep it charged. And I still don't have one because all of these EVs feel like the worst of the computer world applied to automotive. The last thing I need is a computer on wheels and I'm old enough that I know my current car is likely my last. For my kids it is different, and I'm sure that they'll go electric at some point but I hope that they'll be able to do so without buying a mobile privacy violation instrument.
  - GuB-42 7mo ago
    The Dacia Spring proves that it doesn't have to be the case. The base version doesn't even have a touchscreen, let alone internet connectivity. It is a cheap car, in every sense of the word, but is shows that not every EV has to be like Tesla.

Slow_Hand 7mo ago

I have a tangential question. Do you find that snow banks near roads are appreciably less black and disgusting now that there are fewer ICE vehicles on the road? Growing up in America I have memories of our roadside snowbanks becoming black and saturated by vehicle exhaust and it always felt so gross to me. The back half of winter was characterized by blackened, salt-saturated puddles and banks. I wonder if the prevalence of EVs has made things less dirty in the winter.

TremendousJudge 7mo ago
isn't that at least partially caused by the rubber tire particles?
- Slow_Hand 7mo ago
  Could be! I don't know enough to say what the ratio of exhaust to tire particulate is on the average road. In either case it's a good physical representation of how much particulate we are exposed to every day. Maybe having it trapped in dirty snowbanks is better than having it getting kicked up into the air during a dryer season.
  - jacquesm 7mo ago
    Road particles, brakes and tires dominate that massively. https://www.eiturbanmobility.eu/press-corner/nees-are-the-main-source-of-pollution-from-road-transport-new-study-finds/ https://www.eiturbanmobility.eu/press-corner/nees-are-the-ma...
    - wileydragonfly 7mo ago
      [flagged]
      - jacquesm 7mo ago
        Maybe 'Dwarfed'? Dominated to the point of insignificance? Anyway, did you understand it?

coevcan 7mo ago

> 96% of all new cars in Norway were EV last year. Thats of course because people wanna go green and certainly has nothing to do with the 25% VAT exemption that ICE cars are subject to.

foltik 7mo ago
Yup, everyone else should be taking notes.

cladopa 7mo ago

Oh yeah, because Norway is very representative of the world... A country that is bigger than half Spain with 10 times less population with one of the lowest electrify prices of the entire world(5-8 dollars MWh) because of huge hydro resources. A country with huge capital reserves precisely because of oil resources.

reppap 7mo ago
His first sentence is literally disclaiming that he is in an outlier market.

somethoughts 7mo ago

My hot take for Japan is that hybrids make the most sense until one the major markets (US or all of EU) has significant traction with respect to ubiquitous EV charger infrastructure. Tesla can fund the project of making EV chargers ubiquitous in the US and make it make sense within the context of a profitable business plan. Chinese manufacturers can similarly make it make sense financially. Japanese auto makers who are heavily subsidized by the Japanese government can't easily fund the infrastructure project of making EV chargers ubiquitous in a foreign country like the US or EU and their home market is much smaller.

hedora 7mo ago
California has 1.6 charge stalls per gas nozzle. Does that count? I places like Japan (small, population dense, with small cars) you can use a 120V outlet to charge an EV. Most places have 240V household outlets, and can charge at least twice as fast. So, if you have a garage with electricity, infrastructure isn’t really an issue. Sooner or later it will be common to mandate a charger per residential parking spot. The chargers themselves are $200. The main costs are permitting and retrofitting, but that matters a lot less for new development. If one circuit per parking spot seems like a lot of infrastructure, consider the fact that most apartments have at least a half dozen circuits already.

jesterson 7mo ago

What would be the market like if there is no government intervention with subsidies - the free market? I doubt EV would take any significant share if that would be the case.

longislandguido 7mo ago

A country where you're looked down upon for driving a Focus RS or other "fun" car seems like a boring, austere place to be. Perhaps that's why we never hear about Norwegian car culture (as opposed to Germany and the US). Ferdinand Porsche would have resigned to building apple carts.

dyauspitr 7mo ago
What fun about an ICE vehicle. Loud, slow acceleration, pollution, poisoned garages, transmissions, maintenance, gas is 10x as expensive vs charging at home. It’s shit. My EV smokes Porsches when I need to overtake them. The only thing gas does better is higher range and quicker fill ups.
reeredfdfdf 7mo ago
US car culture has been dead for a long time, at least internationally. People like big American cars made in 50s - 70s for their looks, but since then all I can think of are oversized pickups, Nascar and Tesla which is getting eaten alive by Chinese competitors.
- pepperoni_pizza 7mo ago
  That is unfortunately not the case - see all the ridiculous ginormous American pickup trucks invading Europe as a "look at me, I'm rich" or "look at me I'm (local equivalent to) MAGA" signifiers.
  - justin66 7mo ago
    Do most European cities allow those?
- lan321 7mo ago
  The C8 is great, The Hellcat, Demon, etc are kinda US specific (won't be great on the curvier roads in Europe) but still cool. Modification/Tuning is very alive and well due to lack of regulation in comparison to Europe or pretty much anywhere else.. Car culture is getting killed everywhere because safety and comfort by far outweigh fun in gov priorities but I'm literally considering the US because I'll be able to drive whatever I want. Good luck finding someone running nitrous on the street in Europe nowadays, stretched bikes, engine swaps, etc. It all comes with administrative fees, a lot is forbidden and even if your documents are in order you'll get in trouble because police officers are not qualified or incentivized to deal with severely modified vehicles.

reeredfdfdf 7mo ago

Just cross the border to Sweden or Finland, and the share of EV's of all new cars drop from around 90 to something like 30-35%. The EV transition is going to take a while longer in most EU countries. Of course something to note is the absolute number of cars sold, which has dropped dramatically at least here in Finland. Most people who are priced out of new EV market simply don't buy any new car at all, and the average age of cars is climbing fast. Either way, few people are looking for new ICE vehicles. No point buying outdated tech new, when the used car market has perfectly good ICE vehicles that perform just the same.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

28304283409234 7mo ago

You live in the HackerNews of the real world. Not at all representative for the rest of the world. ;-)

simianparrot 7mo ago

We're struggling with the pollution levels from road dust now though. It's worse in most cities than it ever was with combustion engines. Yes there's lower Co2, but the dust and tire particles are actually more dangerous.

ZeroGravitas 7mo ago
So EVs that reduce both are a double win! EU is introducing regulations for this kind of emissions which will likely create a market for a few new techs that reduce it (reformulated tyres, modern drum brakes that capture dust, etc)