Summary
Norway is on track to become the first country to eliminate gasoline and diesel cars from new car sales, with EVs making up over 96% of recent purchases.
Decades of incentives, including tax breaks and infrastructure investments, have driven this shift.
Officials see EV adoption as a “new normal” and aim for electric city buses by 2025.
While other countries lag behind, Norway’s success demonstrates the potential for widespread EV adoption.
and, shocker, it was even less than “less than 1%” before electric cars were invented!
Norway progresses while the USA regresses going full fucking 3rd World with Orange Nero.
Really? Nor Way!
(sorry for the terrible joke lol)
Has no one told them that EVs don’t work when it’s cold?
/s
I swear all my coworkers keep asking what I’m going to do when my battery dies in the cold smfh
and even my wife still has range anxiety despite traveling half of I-95 multiple times
This was such a big worry of mine, but I’m only down 12% average versus the summer and I live in Canada.
yeah on a recent trip it went from like 2.8 mi/kw to 2.3 mi/kw as the weather went from above to below 0 C but the way you hear some people tell it if the snow falls you’ll be stranded at work and won’t be able to drive ten miles home 😑
While other countries lag behind, Norway’s success demonstrates the potential for widespread EV adoption.
Decades of incentives, including tax breaks and infrastructure investments, have driven this shift.
Basically, if your government really wants it and doesn’t give in to lobbying then they can do it.
It’s many years of concerted effort with successive administrations keeping up the commitment.
Our 2024 figure for % of new cars being electric was 19.6% in the UK so I’d be very surprised if we hit the 2030 target of 80% new cars sold being zero emission.
Geology and geography are also helping a lot.
Norway is also a very wealthy nation, which thanks to its huge oil and gas exports, has a sovereign wealth fund worth more than $1.7tn (£1.3tn). This means it can more easily afford big infrastructure-build projects, and absorb the loss of tax revenue from the sale of petrol and diesel cars and their fuel.
The country also has an abundance of renewable hydro electricity, which accounts for 88% of its production capacity. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg52543v6rmo
They don’t withdraw much from that fund though and have an annual ceiling of 3% of its value, they still pay a good amount of taxes (22% on income, 25% sales tax). Blaming the oil fund just shows how lacking other countries management is.
They don’t withdraw a lot, but having it means they don’t have a need to tax all the things just in case either and they can take a hit today to plan for a better future. That is to say, EVs in Norway are exempt from vehicle taxes, import duties, registration fees and get all kinds of other benefits too making them way cheaper in comparison to ICE cars.
That fund has something like $200 000 per Norwegian in it.
Most things have a 25% sales tax on them + 22% flat rate for income tax. How much taxes are billionaires paying in the US?
Again, blame the fund all you want, in the end the problem is other countries not jumping at the opportunities presented to them to build a similar fund.
It was inspired by Alberta’s heritage fund (which obviously existed before Norway’s), Alberta has a much bigger oil reserve and has extracted way more oil than Norway. How much do they have in their version of the fund? Less than CAD $30B. Instead of investing for the future they decided to cut all sales taxes and to lower income taxes as much as they realistically could while still offering public services.
The same logic can apply to any government that has natural resources to manage and decides not to nationalize it to invest for the future.
No clue, I’m from Finland where our VAT is 25.5%, income tax is higher than in Norway, and our vehicles are some of the most expensive, and also the oldest, in Europe :)
Close.
Every NOK over 500k is now with VAT. They changed it last year.
The selection under 500k is still quite good, so I’m not gonna pretend the deal is horrible, and you only pay on the amount over, so a 600k car is still artificially cheap compared to most places.
Yepp, it’s odd to celebrate the milestone to emobility if one knows it’s paid all by carving carbon out of the earth. The goal of Emobility is to reduce carbon emissions - as far as I know.
I’m not saying they aren’t downplaying it, but it’s also a population of 5.5 million of highly educated and high per capita income, which makes easier to implement. Small population and people who can afford it.
Maybe but so far in the us, it’s not the large population or lack of affordability blocking EV adoption, as much as politics, conservative backlash, Facebook science, outrage culture. If we could put aside our toxicity, spite, narcissism, and come together for a better future, we could be pretty far down that road too
Certainly valid that there isn’t a cultural norm for it in the US. With that said, the US still has about 3.3 million EVs on the road. Norway has about 3.4 million cars on the road total.
So it’s a heck of a lot easier to enable 5.5 million people to replace their cars then 330 million people. Size matters as much as the identity we have with it on this one.
That works both ways. Norway doesn’t have a large base of car manufacturers who can follow their guidance, but the US does, including Tesla who did so much to popularize EVs and used to dominate
Any large transition need guidance, incentives, motivation to happen in a reasonable time. Norway did that. Meanwhile the us is an inconsistent mess spewing FUD, lobbying by entrenched interests, and very short term thinking. Of course we only have the early adopters who could wade through all that resistance and now with Musks jump to the right we have a whole new obstacle.
- how did Norway get chargers? We just now started government funding and it’s likely cancelled
- when did they provide incentives to help encourage expensive purchases? Us again just recently started a federal incentive, it has been inconsistent and likely will be cancelled
- I’ve ready that Norway had incentives at registration, parking, toll roads. US still hasn’t done those and several states make EV registration more expensive
- too many in the US still claim EVs are impractical or more polluting, even in the face of all evidence to the contrary, while Norway did it
- does Norway have things like “rolling coal” or “ICEing”? Vandalism for copper scrap? What kind of toxic trash does that?
And this is the nuanced answer that begins to give context to the issue.
Absolutely correct.
Sure, but Norway also has decent active/public transit. So, if residents can’t afford an EV, there’s a good chance they just don’t own a car at all, and can still get around okay.
As I’m here now, I can attest to the great public transit. However I will also say the large and dispirit nature of their population means the car will still likely rule. Yes many may not afford it, and some prefer the bike (even now in winter) but they seem to love their cars as much as the US given the traffic.
I remember using Google Street View in Norway, every single corner you turn…there’s an EV!
Meanwhile our Premier just floated the idea to delay the ban on gas car sales… Fun how a new president in the neighboring country makes us give up on our emission goals…
Norway: don’t get high on your own supply…
But did they stopped exporting oil and gas? /s
Crude oil and natural gas amount to 62% of the total value of Norway’s exports of goods in 2023.
https://www.norskpetroleum.no/en/production-and-exports/exports-of-oil-and-gas/
Norway selling their trash
But that’s emissions outside of our environment so that’s fine, no worries.
Please Europe keep buying our natural gas at record prices.
Why the /s when it’s clearly not sarcasm?
Norway… Who’s primary exports are crude oil and petroleum gas.
Also Norway is cold and EVs do not do well in the cold. Especially with current battery technology.
Also Norway is cold and EVs do not do well in the cold. Especially with current battery technology.
HOLY SHIT WHY HAS NOBODY SAID THIS BEFORE OR ADDRESSED IT IN ANY WAY!!!
This thread is so fucking funny. Its not like we started driving EV’s in Norway this fall, and then in winter they all stopped working . I am telling my EV it’s not working, but god dammit, it just won’t listen to me.
They work fine in the cold. This old, blatantly wrong, myth needs to die soon.
Source: we use them every damn day all year, including winter.
Sincerely A Norwegian with an EV daily driver.Charging lithium batteries below a certain temperature is very bad for them.
It also reduces capacity and charge cycles significantly.
Yes they still technically function, but they wear out much faster and output much less as you go colder.
That means you need to replace the batteries much more often.
The batteries are the least environmentally friendly part of the whole EV.
Which is why they are heated before being charged, either by the on-board heater if it’s been parked, or naturally by just driving the damn thing.
You said EVs don’t work well in the cold. That is a demonstrably false statement by the fact that Norway has over 500 000 of them rolling around all year. You can post as many misinformed links supporting it as you wish. If it had any merit, we would not be at 90%+ adoption rating.
Either you are the biggest genious in the world and we are half a million morons, or you are just wrong.
The fact that I drive mine in weather spanning from -30 C to +25 C makes me suspect the latter.Have a good one, mate.
Brother what are you talking about. I said they function in the cold. They don’t work well in the cold. They have recommended temperature ranges for a reason. I am simply pointing out the significant hit to battery performance and lifespan that the deep cold adds.
I havent posted any “misinformation”. You can literally verify every statement I’ve made with a number of scientific papers and studies on the effects of temperature and batteries. We have known they don’t work well in the cold for years. I have had to stick an untold number of cellphones into my inner layer pants pockets to prevent them from completely shutting off or refusing to charge because they got way too cold to safely operate.
By owning and driving fully electric cars in the significant cold they are absolutely lowering of the lifespan of those batteries meaning they need to be replaced more often. The batteries are far and away the biggest source of pollution in an EV.
You can call me names and whatever else you want but at least be scientifically accurate.
The misinformation is that they don’t work well in the cold. Truth be told, they are fantastic in the cold. I’d argue better than ICE. That’s a different topic for a different day though.
You are, rightfully so, claiming batteries don’t like cold temperatures. What you fail to add are the mitigations companies make to solve these issues. That feels disingenous, unless you just didn’t know.
If your phone had the capacity and function to heat itself up during outdoor use, it would also work brilliantly.
So while I’m sure the scientific papers are great, without having read them, I’d guess they don’t include the whole picture either as if they would, we’d be in agreement.
I tried finding where I called you any names and failed, but if you felt attacked then I appoligize for that. I have nothing against you or think you deserve that. We are just disagreeing on this one topic.
Have a good night!
What you posted is irrelevant, the other guy gave you an answer in the first sentence: you heat the batteries up if needed. Problem solved.
Hey super genius if your have a car that only has batteries inside it as an energy source what do you use to heat up the batteries so the batteries are working inside their correct temperature range? The batteries. Which are cold because you parked it outside in a place that averages close to zero degrees depending on the region and time of year. Sure if you park it in your heated garage and then park it at work at a heated garage and you only ever drive it between those locations the cold will basically hit matter but if you ever leave the car anywhere that it will drop down to ambient outside temps then it will be causing damage to the batteries when they use their own cold juices to get warmed up enough to do their job right.
I know that when charging they will sip power to heat the batteries to the proper temperature for charging (and they heat up a tad naturally when charged), but anyone who isn’t always charging it while parked or leaving inside a heated garage that will not be the case.
This is true, but the batteries do not suffer any harm by being used when cold, just charging which we by now agree is not an issue as long as the car heats them up first.
They also expell heat by being used, so they are nice and toasty for when you reach you destination and can plug in.
And that’s why they’re capable of heating themselves up.
The entire EV has less impact than just the petrol in the most efficient small engine car ALONE. You’re not even counting the pollution caused by the ICE car being made, yet the likes of Volvo announces the entire lifetime of what the polestar will consume with the current market pollution of energy, which is only going down.
You’re spewing myths and are straight up wrong.
I’m gonna need a source on that one chief. If you account for the extremely unclean energy used to mine, process and ship the raw materials for EVs they are absolutely not cleaner for the environment than current efficient ICE vehicle production. To be clear they both create a ton of pollution during production but this claim that EVs are magically cleaner is a crock of shit.
The main difference is we have been producing ICE vehicles for a long time. We have (mostly) ethical mining for the resources required and the whole process has been streamlined over the last 100+ years.
Just because you’ve shifted the pollution from on your street to some poor kids in the congo doesn’t mean you’re suddenly “clean”.
I’m not saying that we need to stay using ICE forever or that EVs are inherently evil. Simply that as the EV market currently sits they are not the clean green machines people often want to pretend they are.
Sure, here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31joJUU4X-g fairly early in the video.
I’m not even going to start debunking your arguments because they’re such assumptions it’s laughable. What are you even on about? Kids in Congo? Get a grip mate.
Feel free to do your own research at any point. The materials required for the massive batteries in all those EVs have to come from somewhere and they generally are obtained through slave and child labor in third world countries.
Also your “source” is a privately run show from a former actor and comedian who really likes EVs and he gathered an audience that donate money to him through patron to keep the show going. That’s a biased source if I’ve ever seen one. Of course the guy who makes a living in the EV space is going to do nothing but sing the praises of the Almighty EV.
I feel it bears repeating I am not even again against EVs. I simply do not care for how the EV super fans talk about their stuff. They always seem to pick and choose whatever information is convenient for them and their favorite tech while conveniently leaving out anything negative.
I do believe electric will be the future. We just have some problems to sort out on the energy density side of things. Battery technology still just isn’t quite ready and even if we sick with lithium we need to find a better way to get the materials required.
Edit: spelling
they generally are obtained through slave and child labor in third world countries.
Isn’t that for pretty much everything?
LFP
Rightttt, if only we had literal millions of these cars work in freezing temps. They’re better in cold that ice cars.
If that’s the case why are all of the vehicles in the Arctic diesel? The south Pole is all diesel.
Anywhere that spends time regularly in the negatives does not use electric vehicles.
Because there’s not enough electric capacity in remote locations and fuel is more energy dense. But 99.9999995% of people are not living in the south pole, you don’t need a spaceship to go buy bread.
Diesel straight up doesn’t run when it gets cold enough. Diesel fuel becomes jelly in the negatives. They have to mix it with avgas to keep it liquid enough.
Reminds me of an oilfield… Town? Region? Camp? My uncle told me about called “Dead Horse, Alaska”. It gets so cold there they need to keep the diesel equipment fueled and running constantly or it doesn’t come on again without major intervention.
Sounds absolutely nuts to me, but I guess spreadsheets say the black-gold more than pays for burning nasty fuel 24/7 just to be there.
My apologies I should have been more specific. It’s a special diesel fuel they call AN8. Generally still referred to simpy as Diesel. The vehicles they put it into are diesel vehicles.
They do work slightly worse when it’s very cold, but it’s fine.
See my response to the guy above. I don’t think you can say it’s only “slightly” worse.
About 20% less efficient, so still 60% more than ICE.
While there is no hard rules involved with the word “slightly” when used to describe a change in percentage it is generally used for changes of 5% or less.
Yes this is getting pedantic about the English language but a 20% change would be more accurately referred to as a “moderate” change.
And you are absolutely correct ICE engines are always less thermally efficient than EVs. Your average standard gasoline engine these days is somewhere in the ballpark of ~25% efficient. Some of the more efficient diesel ICEs are up to 50% efficient these days. EVs tend to be around ~90% thermally efficient.
Also it’s not a 20% loss at 0°C. It’s closer to 50%. Which would be most accurately described as a “significant” loss of efficiency.
Even AAA did research that shows it’s anywhere from 10% loss in range to 40% loss as you get colder and colder.
What is the efficiency of an internal combustion engine in cold weather, for comparison?
At least the EV starts every damn time.
Batteries don’t stay at 0C very long… Because you heat them up. It’s a known and solved problem.
