“Norway is the world leader when it comes to the take up of electric cars, which last year accounted for nine out of 10 new vehicles sold in the country.”
The only reason Norway can afford electric cars is because of the wealth that comes from its oil and gas industry. This is why Norweigans who can afford to buy new cars can also afford electric cars.
So … yay?
That’s a load of bullshit, how is money going to a pension fund making the people richer when no money was withdrawn from it until 2016 even though it has existed since 1990?
They have a flat taxation rate of 22% with sales taxes at 25%. Compare that to the US with billionaires paying no taxes at all…
Money is taken from the sovreign wealth fund every year. However, it is not taken from the savings, but from interest. A maximum of 3% of the funds value can enter the budget, as decided by the budgetary rule.
Oil also makes people richer because it provides industry and jobs.
However, the reason people can afford electric vehicles is that they are excempt from value-added tax. VAT on new cars is quite high in Norway, so if this shaves $40 000 off the price of a new car it obviously makes them more lucrative by comparison.
It’s a political decision, it’s not that all Norwegians walk around with fuck you money and buy the most expensive cars on the market just for fun.
Interest they get from their investments in companies like Solvay, Coca-Cola and Pfizer.
Not really. They have a very simple tax device that ensures EVs are cheaper than thermal cars. China has put in place something similar. It is not a rich country thing. It is about being serious about its transition
Which is just making all cars more expensive for everyone, meaning that Norweigans who can buy new cars are wealthy enough to buy expensive cars.
To my understanding, the taxes have been there all along. They didn’t add new taxes for ICE cars, they just issued some tax breaks for EVs. So the cars haven’t gotten any more expensive, since that’s what Norwegians would have been paying anyway (Whether taxes in general are excessively high in Norway is another issue entirely).
Norway got rich with petroleum products. Bunch of hypocrites.
What are you thinking makes them hypocrites? Doesn’t seem like doing something bad for the planet, then improving things is hypocritcal unless they start claiming they’ve always been perfect. At any rate, veats doubling down on petroleum like the US are currently doing.
“Got rich”
The profits are going in a fund that is kept for later on, it doesn’t affect people’s current finances. The only idiots here are all the countries that didn’t nationalize their natural resources to do the same.
Alberta’s oil reserve is massive compared to Norway, what they have to show for it is 18B while Norway has 1.75T saved.
“A FunD THaT iS KepT FoR LatEr On” aka they invest it in the stock market, making the climate crisis worst. And they are still profiting off oil exploitation.
Fuck norway
They vote against CEOs that aren’t working to prevent climate change. Not all stock market investments make the climate crisis worse.
Fuck your disinformation.
nah a lot of their stuff get subsidised by the EU too from what I’ve heard, I think the flip side of it is that they have long training and internship periods so almost everyone is in their 30s by the time they get anywhere. The irony is worrying about global warming when you live in a frozen hell.
Wait so as an european living car free in a city I’m subsidizing the lifestyle of some rich fucks living in a fjord?
That’s it, i’m doing tax evasion.
Can someone tell me how? EV’s perform terribly in extreme cold. If the car starts at all, the battery life absolutely tanks. We’ve had entire charging stations unable to function through the past couple weeks, as temperatures plummeted in many states.
Toyota had it right. We really need to be pushing for hydrogen cars. EV’s simply can’t perform in extreme cold, and the batteries explode or catch fire in extreme heat. That’s not the tech we should be investing in to carry us through the extreme temperature swings we’re experiencing during climate catastrophe.
I think the only logical conclusion would be EV actually work better in the cold than what you have been told. Maybe that’s the same for charging stations or maybe Norway builds to a standard that fits their climate and doesn’t cut corners.
It’s not just what I’ve been told. I’ve personally experienced the issues, as have thousands of others dealing with EV extreme cold problems the past couple of weeks in the eastern US.
If anyone has any further info, I’d love to find out what Norway could possibly be doing to address a fundamental issue with the technology. All I’ve been able to find is some workarounds to keep the cars still running, and just accepting worse performance in extreme weather.
I don’t understand why anti-hydrogen prejudice is so prevalent that we’ll put up with EV limitations before considering alternatives. Smells like EV investor propaganda & sunk cost fallacy to me.
My own prejudice against hydrogen is around manufacturing.
Most of the world current hydrogen made isn’t green at all, and the message is “we’ll figure it out once demand is up”
And the companies pushing the most for hydrogen are petrol companies.
I’m not a chemist, but it doesn’t seem to add up to me.
I say that as an EV owner living in Canada. I need to use a fast charge station about 4 times a year due to cold related battery issues, and all of those time are because of extended road trips.
It could be as simple as the equivalent of a “block heater” that you would use on a ICE in a cold climate. These are not new technologies, many use these simple devices for cars in places where it gets cold, and I can’t imagine installing a correctly engineered device into the battery coolant system would pose much of a problem. Automatically turn on at a predetermined departure time or below a certain temperature while charging.
That doesn’t help much with the reduced range thanks to the cold, but it will get you going in the morning. We have a PHEV that won’t let you use the battery below 20°F, but the ICE warms the battery and it comes online about 5 minutes after start.
electric vehicle (EV) drivers to wait in line for hours at charging stations last month; some even found themselves stranded when their battery died while they waited in the queues.
I’m sure “some” ICE cars have also ran out of fuel while queueing, seems like a bit of a nothing statement. More stations are needed and range does get lower in colder conditions that is known. Waiting until you have 30 miles left when you know electric cars lose 15% of range isn’t smart.
Norway does winter testing on their vehicles and I’m sure people ask other people about car performance.
https://www.naf.no/elbil/elbil-nytt/ev-range-and-charge-test
Hydrogen is largely useless. It’s an electric car with extra steps and low density fuel and difficult storage conditions.
Sure if you driving across the outback and need lightweight and fast charging there might be uses for it. But when you got 300 miles of range and live in a city why would hydrogen be better? You actually have to go to a station if nothing else rather than just charging where you park.
Hydrogen is ultimately more inefficient in time and energy and cost so it’s going to lose.
EV’s simply can’t perform in extreme cold,
Given that we’ve moved almost all of Norway to EVs, that’s obviously untrue. So if you re-examine that assumption, what new conclusions do you come to?
So what’s the secret sauce? What profound technological steps forward have they made?
Or are they just heating up the battery, and eating further into the already severely impacted battery life?
I’m not an engineer. I’m pointing out that the real world is proving that EVs can work just fine in the cold, so your assertion that they can’t doesn’t hold any water. This was a recent article of interest, though.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/01/cold-weather-range-hits-arent-as-bad-for-evs-with-heat-pumps/
If you’re using heat pumps, and not resistive heating for batteries, looks like the range loss can be as little as ~12%, which is pretty insignificant.
How are they doing on developing public transportation infrastructure, though? That is going to be far more impactful longterm, and is the only way to build a sustainable transportation network.
Trains in Nordic have been electric for a generation, starting from 60’s.
Busses have been mostly electric in my knowledge about 10 years, I think most of them are ran by electric motor, which is charged with diesel if batteries run out.
Trams and metros have been electric for last 100 years.
When I went to Oslo I only took public transport.
I even used to to take the bus to the forest. I walked into the bush for hours then slept. Decided I couldn’t be bothered walking back. Checked my paper map and walked into a one road town/suburb and took the bus back. That’s how much faith I had that some random place would have a regular bus going to the city centre.
Not surprising. Norway seems to be driving a lot of development away from excess energy use and oil. Not only in transportation, but also in real estate.
I know little of all projects there, but what I do know makes me want to go there and learn how to do better. When (not if) electric uptake nears 100%, like in Norway, things will start to happen in the market. Petrol stations, refineries etc. will see a very different demand, which will propel much needed change!
