from Hacker News

Norway to hit 100% electric vehicle sales by early next year

by fourmii on 10/6/21, 8:00 PM with 272 comments

• by thomasfl on 10/6/21, 8:50 PM

  There's a huge price difference between electric cars and gas fueled cars here in Norway. Gas fueled car buyers have to pay both 25 percent VAT and an additional tax on purchase. Buyers don't have to pay neither of those taxes if they buy an electric car. The singer of the group A-ha, Morten Harket, bought an electrical car in 1989 and refused to pay road tolls and ignored all the subsequent fines. That got a lot of attention, and Norway ended up having very affordable electrical cars compared to gas fueled cars. Norway is one of Tesla's main market.

• by bellyfullofbac on 10/6/21, 9:18 PM

  On the topic of Norwegian oil, a fascinating story of an Iraqi who helped them deal with being an oil-producing nation: https://web.archive.org/web/20100123225932/http://www.ft.com...

  He was an oil expert who met a Norwegian au-pair in London, they got together, married, had a sick kid so they decided to move to Norway, and because he had the whole day before he could take the train from Oslo to her hometown, he decided to visit the Ministry of Industry to get leads on oil jobs...

• by anonporridge on 10/6/21, 9:37 PM

  It will be interesting if there comes a point where ICE vehicles are such a small minority of all vehicles, that supporting infrastructure (petrol stations, traditional mechanics, oil change services, etc) starts to collapse and disappear.

  There may still be some infrastructure for special use cases like long haul trucking or industrial vehicles, but it might become untenable for the average consumer to own an ICE vehicle, just like it was painfully difficult to own an EV before charging stations became widespread.

  When that happens, it could further accelerate the decommissioning of old vehicles.

• by WalterBright on 10/6/21, 8:42 PM

  20% of Norway's GDP comes from pumping oil out of the ground and selling it for others to burn. If they were really green that would stop.

• by bamboozled on 10/7/21, 12:48 AM

  I've not owned a car for many years, always get trains and always try live in places where it's fine to walk or cycle. Inner cities, now in a rural village where I'm close to most amenities.

  Recently I went on a road trip my partner (who really wanted to go), the whole time I couldn't stop thinking about how stupid of an activity it was given what we know about our future if we stay on the current trajectory. While driving I was looking around at hundreds of thousands of other people doing the same thing and just got me down.

  The idea of hundreds of millions of machines driving around emitting carbon dioxide and other pollutants is just so stupid it's hard to imagine we collectively accepted the idea in the first place.

  It's really hard to believe that none of the externalitiez are factored into the absolutely insane cost of climate change.

  However, I guess what I really wanted to say by writing this comment is, at least there is some hope :)

• by tannhaeuser on 10/6/21, 8:24 PM

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

• by bellyfullofbac on 10/6/21, 8:45 PM

  What a weird forecast, this is like saying "Bitcoin will hit $100k in 3 months." by looking at the price graph. Since people will still be allowed to buy such cars so far, I doubt 100% will ever be reached...

• by riazrizvi on 10/6/21, 10:09 PM

  Norway produces over 93% of its electricity from hydroelectric sources and the rest from wind and thermal ones.

  I think they have just become the first country to unlock this tech IRL Civ.

• by mupuff1234 on 10/7/21, 2:08 AM

  I still cant help but think about how wasteful cars are. We basically have these giant energy hungry machines who just sit idle and take up space 95% of the time, and when they are utilized, it's mostly for a single passenger with almost zero luggage.

• by djrogers on 10/7/21, 8:48 PM

  Pretty misleading title IMHO - from the 3rd para of the article: "In the first eight months of 2021, vehicles without any type of electrification – battery electric vehicle, plug-in hybrid, hybrid – made up less than 10 per cent of (9.66 per cent) new car sales"

  So by 'electric', they mean what are commonly referred to as 'electrified' vehicles, and by ICE, they are actually referring to pure gas/diesel cars. I have news for you - hybrids still burn gas!

• by overkill28 on 10/6/21, 10:09 PM

  There are some serious caveats here:

  > seven out of every eight cars bought and sold in Norway a used car. The NAF’s numbers show that of the 357,176 ownership registration changes so far in 2021, electric vehicles only accounted for 12 per cent.

  And their definition of electric cars includes hybrids (whereas I think most people interpret it to mean fully electric). So they're obviously doing great but the vast majority of the vehicles in Norway are still ICE only.

• by andrenth on 10/6/21, 8:48 PM

  Does anyone have a pointer to studies on the effects of electric vehicles in the used car market?

  I ask because the lifespan of current batteries seems to be around 8 years (going by manufacturers' warranties), and the battery pack amounts to approximately 30% of the price of the car. So people buying an used electric car will likely face a large maintenance cost after a while.

• by lonelyasacloud on 10/6/21, 10:39 PM

  It's good that Norway may hit 100% electric EV. But with ~20% of their economy based on oil and gas production, it's hard not to think of it being funded largely by exporting pollution elsewhere.

• by guerby on 10/6/21, 9:46 PM

  Warning probable pro tesla bias but here is a video about market for EV in other countries than Norway:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJpLm0uuVgA

  "When will we have 100% EV adoption ? Norway was NOT fast, compared to what is coming." BestInTESLA

• by flerp on 10/7/21, 5:38 AM

  A country that made its fortune ( and still does ) largely by oil has the money to quickly jump on a green-washing trend. Hah. Who figured

• by pstrateman on 10/6/21, 11:42 PM

  Norway is an oil welfare state.

  Comparing anything they do with your own country is a mistake.

• by findthewords on 10/6/21, 9:30 PM

  In other words, the market is saturated?

• by LatteLazy on 10/6/21, 8:58 PM

  There has been a similar big bump in the uk (to 17% not 100 but still...). How much of this is that a lot of legacy companies can't produce anything because they can't get chips?

• by yunohn on 10/7/21, 4:59 AM

  Norway, the prime example of “don’t get high off your own supply” re Oil. Quite disingenuous, if you ask me.

  Refer: https://www.ft.com/content/8574bd97-86e2-4665-9192-93dfde877...