
Tesla becomes most popular automaker in Norway - doener
http://agnnews.com/tesla-becomes-most-popular-automaker-in-norway-where-32-of-new-cars-are-electric/
======
hurrdurr
This is a repeat of a prior Tesla publicity stunt. What they do is they only
ship cars to Norway quarterly, and by filling a big backlog of orders they
then claim to be the most popular make in that month, which is technically
true but also quite silly. You can clearly see on the graph in the article
that the reason Tesla "sold" a ton of cars in September is because it sold
almost none in August and July prior. And Tesla has been pumping this PR trick
for at least four years.

I think this says more about Tesla's bizarre production and delivery schedules
than it says about the automobile market in Norway.

~~~
deepsun
Tesla is also subsidized by government, so it costs pretty much the same as a
"general" kind of family car.

~~~
toomuchtodo
They arent subsidized. Internal combustion vehicles are disincentivized with
taxes. Externalities internalized.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Well, not really. The hefty taxes on ICEs have been there always to provide
income for the state, they were not introduced to internalize any
environmental effects. In particular this holds for the 25% VAT which EVs get
to skip, which you otherwise pay on anything from bubblegum to burglary
alarms.

The thing that irks me about this subsidy (or whatever you call it) is how
ineffective it is. Something like $5000 per tonne CO2 avoided, if uou make
some optimistic assumptions, which is 50-100x more expensive than most
sensible emissions reduction methods. Adding insult to injury, total emissions
from cars are _growing_ , i.e. EVs lead to people driving more in total, not
driving less in ICE cars. It's just greenwashing, pure and simple.

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dogma1138
This what happens when a basic sedan like a Volkswagen Passat plug-in starts
at 450,000 NOK ($54,000), once you add even basic customization, fees and all
the rest the on the road cost of a mid range sedan could be as much as Tesla
75d, since many Teslas come to Norway as secondary imports there are plenty of
“refurbished” Model S 60d’s for less than that.

Don’t get me wrong it’s neat that this is the case but this is an anomaly
which both isn’t “right” and not applicable to most places.

Norway has effectively a luxury tax of 100% on cars and it can go higher than
that based on the rediculous EU pollution score.

~~~
ciconia
Why ridiculous? After all, it's been put in place for the express purpose of
reducing greenhouse gas emissions [1], and at least in Norway it seems to be
effective.

[1]
[https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/vehicles/cars_...](https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/vehicles/cars_en)

~~~
dogma1138
Because it didn’t, it was hugely biased against CO2 emissions only which
allowed the European favored Diesel engines to appear much less polluting.

On top of that the policy focused heavily on engine “size” which again favored
Diesel engines and vehicle weight which effectively screwed over early plugin
hybrids and currently screws over large families and luxury cars.

The weight and capacity policy has also been abused to make luxury and
performance cars considerably more expensive despite being more economical and
less polluting at road speeds.

~~~
quickben
Sport cars have stronger engines, luxury cars are heavier. How do you get from
that to 'more economical' ?

~~~
dogma1138
Because the policy doesn’t take into account actual fuel consumption and
emissions.

The BMW 520d has a combined MPG of 72 and 79 road, it’s still at a higher
category than many less efficient cars simply because of how the policy is
structured.

For gasoline engines specifically you’ll also find that many performance cars
do offer higher efficiency at road speeds than your sluggish 1.8L minivan.

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jacquesm
The high sales in December 2017 are easily explained because of the one-off
tax proposed for 2018:

[https://www.ft.com/content/fe6b79d4-af31-11e7-aab9-abaa44b1e...](https://www.ft.com/content/fe6b79d4-af31-11e7-aab9-abaa44b1e130)

Once Norway drops the tax advantages for EVs which is projected to happen
somewhere past 2020 likely they'll be back to 'normal' quite quickly.

Also, this is for _new_ sales, the bulk of the fleet is still ICE's (68%),
with the majority made up by VW, Toyota and Volvo.

~~~
microtherion
Plus some incentives for EVs are being phased out in 2018:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-
in_electric_vehicles_in_N...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-
in_electric_vehicles_in_Norway)

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moomin
The funny thing is, if there’s a country that practically would adopt electric
cars last, it would be Norway. It’s got large distances and low prevailing
temperatures, neither of which are favourable to electric cars.

That’s how it would go if countries were equal. However, Norway’s a fairly
enlightened and forward thinking place, so politically it’s not surprising
they’re way ahead of the curve.

~~~
dogma1138
Nothing to do with being forward thinking it’s about money.

When you can buy a Tesla for the same price or cheaper and a bloody Volkswagen
Passat you are going to buy a Tesla.

The Passat which in the US would cost you $20,000 has an on road price which
starts at around $60,000 in Norway and most versions would cost you $70-75K.

~~~
gnarbarian
Yep. Norway discourages gas powered vehicle ownership through miles of red
tape and taxes.

~~~
apcragg
Is that a bad thing though? Are they just pricing in the externalities of gas
powered cars?

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fpoling
In Oslo people complain that rich people in suburbs get Tesla just to avoid
traffic jams and use public transport lines that electrical cars can also use.
Yet for less fortunate folks who needs a family car non-electric cars are
still the only option money wise.

In principle they have a point. As battery is still extremely expensive it is
cheaper to make a plugin hybrid that can drive like 50 kilometers on a battery
and uses small engine to get a bigger range. In practical usage such car will
be 95% electric yet cheaper than pure electric with range of, say, 300 km. Yet
in Norway only electrical cars have zero taxes. The tax insensitives for
plugins are relatively minor and do not compensate for price increase due to
more complex power train. So people looking for a bigger family car often get
a gasoline or disel car.

~~~
dzhiurgis
Dont you find it bizzare that adding extremely complex engine + drivetrain
integration is cheaper than adding additional solid state battery storage?

It’s a bit like CRT vs LCD or HDD vs SSD. Eventually the reduced complexity or
even weight of raw components are cheaper than counterparts.

~~~
fpoling
HDD is still much cheaper than SSD. The same is with ICE cars that have 100
years to perfect manufacturing. I guess in 10 years battery will be cheap
enough to end the ICE age, but at this technological point small ICE + small
battery looks like the cheapest solution.

~~~
quickben
It may or may not get cheaper.

Lithium isn't semiconductor engineering where every generation you double the
density yearly (even that stopped long time ago).

Planning current policies on future scientific discovered usually doesn't end
up as planned.

~~~
fpoling
I do not count on any scientific breakthrough. The current batteries are good
enough for cars. It is just too expensive to make them. But most of the price
is not inherent in the technology, but rather in expensive specialized tools.
Economy of scale should fix this.

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stretchwithme
By one estimate, owning an electric car in Oslo is worth US $8,200 annually.

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

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friedButter
Isnt there a very large tax Norway applies to other cars that doesnt apply to
Tesla?

