
Plug-In EV Sales in Norway Up 48% in October, Overall Market Share at 43% - tresbonn
https://insideevs.com/norway-ev-sales-october-2017/
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Retric
It's going to be an interesting inflection point when gas stations start
closing. It's easy to setup a charging station at home, but if the nearest gas
station is 30 miles away that's a different story.

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yessql
Imagine how much simpler a commercial charging station is than a gas station.
You already need electricity for a gas station, but you no longer need to send
tanker trucks out to fill tanks and technicians to maintain all the mechanical
pumps, or even the auditors who make sure that the pump is measuring gallons
correctly.

It will be really easy to enable long distance travel for EV's that can DC
fast charge. Charging for your home area is covered by wherever you park it.

Seems like a gas station death spiral is inevitable, once there is a solid
travel network in place and ample 200 mile range EV's available.

~~~
1053r
Just to be clear, the power requirements for a supercharging station and a gas
station are wildly different. The supercharging station might be putting out
75KW per car, and have a dozen cars charging at any particular point. A whole
gas station might pull less than 75Kw easily.

The requirements for the kind of grid hookup you need to handle that power are
wildly different. Alternatively, you can have a lower powered grid connection,
and local batteries to buffer energy and lower peak power, but that is even
more expensive, and only works if your charging station has low average usage.

Once built, the supercharging station might need less maintenance, but it is
WAY more expensive to set one up up front. This won't stop them from
proliferating, IMO, but it's still a big barrier to entry, and a nice
commercial "moat" for Tesla to offer their customers.

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pipio21
We have worked with electric trains with over 1Mwatt or more per machine in
places like subways. When a train slows down and stops, an enormous amount of
electricity is recovered for another train to accelerate at the same time.

Also the requirements of aluminum factories in electricity are mind blowing.

What I mean is: We already have those electrical installations running, way
bigger installations than 10 supercharging stations grouped together, for
industry and transport.

I see EVs as an enormous opportunity for those technologies to become cheaper
as they become mass produced. But the technology is well proven and works.

It will also accelerate the development of things like superconductors or
extreme voltage continuous current for electric transportation.

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fludlight
The problem isn't a lack of technology, but cost. You have to get your
electric utility to make substantial improvements to their delivery
infrastructure. This generally involves digging up the street and laying
cables, not just flicking a switch. It gets more expensive depending on how
far your proposed charging station is from the nearest high voltage
distribution point.

~~~
Retric
It does not take a lot of buildings to get into the 1MW range.

A 20 story apartment complex with say 400 apartments needs ~1MW. Power
companies are used to rolling out these kinds of connections and large ones do
it on a weekly if not daily basis.

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monkmartinez
Is this really a surprise? Massive government incentives and cheap
electricity.

I was there this summer working on an oil rig (Aasta Hansteen), ironically.
Teslas, BMW i3's/i8's and more... everywhere. What is more, is that many of
the Norwegians who work in the oil industry own electric cars because "petrol"
cars are too expensive.

~~~
epistasis
It is to me, given the level of subsidy and current tech! And there are always
plenty of people who will believe that electric cars will never work for any
significant chunk of a population. Even on seeing data like this they will
probably retreat to "oh it's a European country, nothing like what I
experience."

The level of economic tax break is such that a Leaf costs about the same as a
Golf[1]. These are pretty equivalent cars in size, though the Leaf is more fun
around town, and the Golf more fun on the highway. But the Leaf has a huge
range disadvantage.

Wikipedia also says:

>Electric vehicles are also exempt from the annual road tax, all public
parking fees, and toll payments, as well as being able to use bus lanes. These
incentives are in effect until the end of 2017 or until the 50,000 EV target
is achieved.

People are buying these largely as second cars (which is what everybody should
be doing, IMHO). Once the battery costs come down so that 300-500km BEV range
costs same cost as gas up front, BEVs become the primary car, and market share
will increase even further.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-
in_electric_vehicles_in_N...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-
in_electric_vehicles_in_Norway#Existing_incentives)

~~~
dmix
This largely has to do with the high average income and a wealthy state than
European culture or anything like that. I can't imagine my city ever giving up
parking fees or the average person being able to afford a mid-tier electric
car, even with the subsidies we have here in Canada.

Not to mention there are usually far better offerings for electric cars in
Europe. Such as the Golf GTE which isn't available in North America:
[http://www.autotrader.ca/expert/20170605/first-
drive-2018-vo...](http://www.autotrader.ca/expert/20170605/first-
drive-2018-volkswagen-golf-gte/)

The lack of infrastructure is also a big deal. I personally didn't get a plug-
in because of the lack of access to plugs in my apartment building and only a
few charging stations in my city.

~~~
epistasis
Are you trying to prove the point of my second and third sentences? :)
Otherwise I'm not really sure what you're trying to say.

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lb1lf
Part of the October boost is probably caused by a significant increase in road
toll for any ICE-powered car entering Oslo, introduced (if memory serves)
October 1st.

Roughly half the population of Norway live within an hour's drive from Oslo
(this is probably a slight exaggeration, but emphasis on 'slight') - so this
increase probably served to boost sales of any toll-exempt vehicle instantly.

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genzoman
All of the hubbub around Norway and EVs smells to me. How far can you really
go in an electric car in the winter in a country in/around the arctic circle?
How far does the distance an EV can travel diminish when you have to heat the
cabin?

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dagw
Most of Norway is very far from the arctic circle. And even the few bits that
are close to the artic circle are pretty warm most of the year. Thanks to the
gulf stream most of Norway rarely gets that cold.

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jononor
Most of the population also live close to the sea, which helps keeps the
winters mild.

If you spend a good amount of time at a winter cabin in the mountains, there
is a good chance you got two car and can take your non-electric there.

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polskibus
Does EV mean purely electric vehicle or does it include hybrids?

~~~
philipkglass
It includes plugin hybrids. The article says that the 43% (42.9%) total breaks
down to 21.6% plugin hybrid electric vehicle and 21.3% battery electric
vehicle. It wouldn't include hybrids that cannot charge batteries from a wall
plug, like the ordinary Prius.

