
Electric cars grab almost half of sales in Norway - RmDen
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-electric-norway/electric-cars-grab-almost-half-of-sales-in-oil-producing-norway-idUSKCN1TW2WO
======
magicalhippo
As a Norwegian who just replaced a diesel car with an electric car, there are
a few factors which is making EVs very attractive here:

\- EVs are VAT (25%) exempt, and in addition avoid the extra duty due to no
CO2 or NOX emissions. As an example a VW Golf 1.0 115HP TSI[1] gasoline
version is about 37.5k USD from dealer. Without VAT or emission duties[2],
that Golf would be about 23k USD, where 8.4k USD is the emission duties.

\- Many people have a relatively short commute, so limited range EVs like
Nissan Leaf or e-Golf do just fine.

\- A lot of our roads, especially in cities, have road toll. EVs have for many
years been exempt. Recently this changed, but EVs still only pays 50% of
regular cars.

[1]: [https://www.volkswagen.no/content/dam/vw-
ngw/vw_pkw/importer...](https://www.volkswagen.no/content/dam/vw-
ngw/vw_pkw/importers/no/bilmodeller/brosjyrer-og-priser/golf/Volkswagen-Golf-
tekniske-data.pdf) [2]:
[https://www.skatteetaten.no/person/avgifter/bil/importere/re...](https://www.skatteetaten.no/person/avgifter/bil/importere/regn-
ut/)

~~~
Scoundreller
> \- Many people have a relatively short commute, so limited range EVs like
> Nissan Leaf or e-Golf do just fine.

Doesn’t this negate a lot of the benefits of de-ICEing vehicles?

Why doesn’t the government use gas tax increases as a tool instead of up-front
discounts?

Getting the 100km/day driver to change from ICE to electric would have 10x the
impact as the 10km/day driver.

~~~
phtrivier
> Why doesn’t the government use gas tax increases as a tool instead of up-
> front discounts?

Given the huge corpus of _two_ datapoints (Norway and France), it seems that:

\- if you offer discounts on EVs, people who own gas-powered cars will
progressively replace them with EVs ;

\- if you increases gas taxes, people who own gas-powered cars will spend
their saturday afternoons demanding your head on a spike, and stop voting for
you until you roll-back on the gas tax increases. (At which point, they will
mostly keep not voting for you, but that's an unrelated debate.)

I suspect not every government has the benefit of _choosing_ between both
options - Norway might be an outlier here.

(And most government will probably choose the "wise" third path of doing
nothing.)

My underlying theory (that must have been tested by Cialdinni, Khaneman or
Ophra) is that rebates feel _good_ , and taxes feel _bad_. But I don't have a
double-blind placebo-controlled experiment to cite.

~~~
Gibbon1
> \- if you increases gas taxes, people who own gas-powered cars will spend
> their saturday afternoons demanding your head on a spike

This is exactly why gas taxes are bad.

> is that rebates feel good, and taxes feel bad

You can also like some California air quality districts are doing buy back low
income peoples junkers and provide them down payment assistance for hybrid and
electric cars. There is a lot less political blow back from those sorts of
programs.

~~~
phtrivier
But, again, you have to be in a position where you can afford such policies.
I'm perfectly ready to hear that Norway and California can afford it, and
France can not.

------
simonsarris
It's really gas producing Norway: 3rd largest nat gas exporter. They're ~13th
in oil exports.

...And 2nd in worldwide median income, which is half the real reason here. The
other half is that Norway has very favorable tax treatment for electric cars
vs not (which is at least mentioned in this article thankfully).

But being the 13th largest oil exporter seems like a very dim relation that's
not really relevant, except as a cute thing. It's like saying "Wood houses
popular in Granite-producing New Hampshire." "Ad blockers popular among ad
producing community." etc

[note this was commentary on submission title chosen, which previously was the
same as the article: "Electric cars grab almost half of sales in oil-producing
Norway"]

~~~
braythwayt
There's a little more than cuteness here. If a country has a large economic
interest in producing fossil fuels, there are often political forces driving
consumption of fossil fuels, and undermining any and all attempt to even
discuss the consequences of fossil fuels.

Looking at the US, the oil industry has long used its muscle to drive (heh)
the use of automobiles and internal combustion engines, and to suppress
initiatives to slow, halt, or reverse climate change.

And that's the interesting thing here: How is it that Norway's economy is so
dependent upon its fossil fuels, but this doesn't appear to blind it to the
consequences of fossil fuel use?

~~~
rwallace
Apparently when Norway found oil, they were blessed with a government that was
both honest and farsighted, noted the effect of the resource curse in other
countries, called in a consultant from the Middle East who had seen it
firsthand, and set up a system that carefully firewalled the oil money to
mitigate its corrupting influence. I'm not clear on exactly how the firewall
works, but people who understand it better than I do, have credited it with
Norway still being a great place to live today.

~~~
ars
You can't tell if it worked until the resource runs out.

It's always a great place to live while the resources are being extracted.

Tell me, how large is the oil industry relative to other industries?

Or to put it in other words, if all oil extraction stops tomorrow what would
happen to the economy?

~~~
rwallace
> It's always a great place to live while the resources are being extracted.

Intuitively you would expect that. The thing that's so difficult for us to
wrap our heads around about the resource curse is that _intuition is
completely wrong here_ ; a sufficiently valuable natural resource can ruin a
country _even while it is being extracted_.

The short version of the reason why is that it breaks the alignment of
interest between the rulers and the people. Manufacturing industry needs a
healthy and capable workforce, but as this excellent video puts it, a gold
mine can run with dying slaves and still produce great treasure:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs)

------
ptah
In UK I find electric cars are significantly more expensive and out of reach
of the average car buyer, even with government subsidies. is this the case
elsewhere? why are they so expensive? EDIT: I have a hybrid, but the
equivalent electric is double the price

~~~
Certhas
There was a study recently that came to the conclusion that EVs are already
cheaper to own in the UK:

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/12/electric...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/12/electric-
cars-already-cheaper-own-run-study)

Is your context significantly different from that of the study? Or do you
think there are unreasonable assumptions in there?

~~~
michaelbuckbee
Thanks for pointing this out, I hadn't seen that and think the data is really
compelling as all comparisons were for the same model VW Golf with ev, hybrid,
petrol and diesel versions. The one cost element not in the article (likely
b/c of the time frame) was repair and maintenance costs - which I'd also
suspect the EV cars to fare better with.

~~~
Gibbon1
Was rolling that over. I suspect repair and maintenance cost savings probably
don't kick in very much until after the warranted period expires. So higher
sales price means higher initial operating costs. Compare a couple hundred a
month car payments with $30-40/month savings on fuel.

So someone buying an EV today isn't going to save any real money for the first
5-6 years. Who ever buys the car on the used market will likely do well
though.

~~~
d1zzy
> I suspect repair and maintenance cost savings probably don't kick in very
> much until after the warranted period expires.

Warranty doesn't cover maintenance, like oil change, which EVs don't need.
Other examples: engine air filter, timing belts, head gaskets, cylinder heads,
spark plugs. Maybe you were thinking of car dealership maintenance packages
that are purchased with a new car and cover (some of) that.

------
alkonaut
Norway has a system of big one time fees for new vehicles based on weight,
emissions and so on. An ICE car can easily have an added fee of more than 100%
the base price of the car. Add some sales tax to that and an ICE car that
isn’t ultra luxurious in the US but is big and heavy will be _very expensive_.
How about an F-150 for $120k? Similar for an X5 40i. The equation is basically
that you can get two Model3 for the price of an F-150

------
rv-de
Meanwhile in Germany:

»BMW executive and board member Klaus Fröhlich told reporters this week that
the shift to cars powered by electricity is "overhyped," and said that there
is "no" consumer demand for them.«

[https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/28/19154233/bmw-electric-
veh...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/28/19154233/bmw-electric-vehicles-ev-
event-executive-overhyped)

* face-palm * _

~~~
lpcvoid
I would give him the benefit of a doubt to have access to advanced, internal
statistics. I believe him.

~~~
emptyfile
Amazing that this comment is downvoted, truly amazing.

~~~
dang
Would you please read the site guidelines and follow them?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
reddotX
Tesla sold 3,760 vehicles in Norway in June, for a 24.5% share of all cars
during the month, and was also the top-selling brand for the first six
months!!

~~~
umvi
3,800 cars constitutes 1/4 of the entire country's monthly car sales?

Norway is a lot smaller than I realized (I'd guess the majority of US states
have more car sales per month than that).

~~~
adambyrtek
Norway population seems to be just 5 million over an area slightly bigger than
Germany which has 82 million people, so it's very sparsely populated.

~~~
Sharlin
Sparsely populated on average. Most people live on the southern coast.

------
kzrdude
Cars are ridiculously expensive in Norway, and lower taxes on electeics mean
that Teslas can compete with that

~~~
Scoundreller
So the question is: how is the lost tax revenue being made up?

~~~
magicalhippo
Partially by postponing or cancelling planned projects. For toll roads by
pushing back the planned shutdown of the toll collection.

This has been become a bit of an issue for politicians, as the trend towards
EV has been much stronger than anticipated.

------
jwr
Meanwhile in Poland…

A new law is being prepared (just got through the senate and went to the
president for final approval) that introduces subsides for EVs, and… wait for
it…

Natural-gas powered vehicles.

Yup. LNG. And the subsidy for those is supposed to be TWICE as much as for
electrics.

This sounds mind-bogglingly insane, but starts making a little sense once you
realize that Poland has almost no natural gas production, and buys it, mostly
from Russia.

There is no facepalm emoji big enough to finish this with.

For Polish readers, see [http://moto.pl/MotoPL/7,170318,24943189,doplaty-do-
samochodo...](http://moto.pl/MotoPL/7,170318,24943189,doplaty-do-samochodow-
elektrycznych-coraz-blizej-senat-przyjal.html) for details.

~~~
m0zg
According to the article, they give up to $20K for an LNG car. That's quite a
subsidy, if it's not a Google Translator screw-up. I was going to say that
electrics shouldn't be subsidized at all (because that'd just be subsidizing
the rich), but the amount of subsidy changes my position: with a $20K subsidy
something like Nissan Leaf becomes quite affordable.

~~~
jwr
Yes, that's about right. $20k for LNG, and about $9.5k for electrics. Insane
priorities, if you ask me, given our current climate crisis.

------
dang
This is becoming a perennial.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19566051](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19566051)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18806930](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18806930)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16001298](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16001298)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11874552](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11874552)

------
punnerud
It is more than half now, and it combined the hybrid cars that often don’t
charge from the wall. The total percent of “electric cars” is still around 5%
overall.

~~~
manmal
Can you link a source for that?

~~~
magicalhippo
[https://www.ssb.no/en/transport-og-
reiseliv/statistikker/bil...](https://www.ssb.no/en/transport-og-
reiseliv/statistikker/bilreg)

About 7% of cars at the start of 2019.

~~~
punnerud
I also have the raw data on type of cars, registration date, car owner etc
from Hedemark/Norway if someone could find use of it.

We used it to develop an AI/ML model in PyTorch to detect ev-cars from hourly
meter reader data. The paper:
[https://www.sintef.no/en/publications/publication/?pubid=CRI...](https://www.sintef.no/en/publications/publication/?pubid=CRIStin+1697556)

------
adrianN
In Germany, hybrids are usually lumped together with fully electric cars. Even
with that trick, only a few percent of the cars on the road are electric.

~~~
agumonkey
what's the sentiment about vw id3 ?

~~~
IAmEveryone
I'd say "nervous" captures it best. Or maybe the quip about the US,
originally, "doing the right thing after having exhausted all other options".

Combustion engines, and Diesel especially, also require a lot more manpower to
assemble. Spiegel, the largest and well-respected magazine, just quoted
relative figures of 10 (Diesel):4 (Gasoline): 1 (Electric). So even if German
manufacturers happen to survive the transition with market share intact, a lot
of jobs are on the line.

And that's a big "if". Not only is there a lot of know-how that will become
rather worthless. Consumers may well consider electric vehicles a new
category, making brand value not transferrable.

The silver lining may be that the importance of cars for German industry,
while big, is often overstated, especially outside Germany. The true strength
of the country is in thousands of engineering SMEs you and I have never heard
of, excelling in specialty B2B products. Stuff like pumps and industrial
tooling and whatnot.

~~~
sergiosgc
> Consumers may well consider electric vehicles a new category, making brand
> value not transferrable.

I guess this is the reasoning behind Kia's very strong investment in electric
cars. They never managed to break the image of European cars having the best
engines [1], and look at electric as an opportunity to break the stronghold.
The risk for the European auto industry is real, and present in the market.

[1] European diesel and gasoline engines are indeed an engineering marvel, so
the technological moat is real, but eroding due to a technology phase-out.
Interesting times ahead.

~~~
WorldMaker
Kia (and Hyundai their ouroboros relative; apparently they each own minor
stakes in each other and which is the parent company depends on which
financial winds you prefer) is presumably also feeling a lot of pressure from
the home Asian markets. Nissan believed almost ten years ago that EVs were the
only path forward and has R&D invested to that point (the Leaf, their Renault
portfolio). Toyota also accidentally built themselves a fiefdom with the Prius
despite their leadership _still_ thinking Hydrogen might still upset EVs
(which looks increasingly unlikely for cars; maybe for other diesel uses), but
with the luck that a good Hydrogen drive chain is a good EV drive chain with a
different "battery".

Plus, all the Chinese EV-only brands trying to disrupt the car industry
entirely (BYD, Nio, etc).

With BMW and VW both talking about plans to have their entire catalogs
electrified as soon as 2023, German manufacturers may finally be feeling the
existential crisis at hand and are trying to compete.

(It's American manufacturers that are probably the most at risk right now. GM
and Ford aren't yet feeling enough pressure from Asian imports nor Tesla. The
irony of "dieselgate" helping the US EPA force the hands of European
manufacturers more firmly towards EV fleets, but not appearing to make a
similar strategic impact on American manufacturers fleets is probably going to
be fog thick in the next few years.)

------
alltakendamned
I am curious how well the batteries do in the cold temperatures. Though maybe
it's only people in the south driving one ?

~~~
magicalhippo
Depends on what you mean by cold. Well below freezing they're not very happy
and have significantly reduced range and power delivery until they heat up.

This issue can be solved by pre-heating the batteries prior to driving.

With a Tesla you can trigger the heating from the Tesla app on your phone.
With the BMW i3 you can plan a departure time, and if it's plugged in it will
make sure the car is charged and batteries are heated if needed (Tesla has no
such plugged-in restriction). Other cars may have similar systems.

Winters in Norway are usually quite cold, below -15C is common in the capital
which also has the majority of the EVs. So this is something to keep in mind,
but is usually not an issue once you get used to it.

~~~
alltakendamned
Thanks for your insights.

Winters here can get down to around -25C and I'm curious what the real world
performance is in such a case.

Even though I'll need to look out for a new car in the next 18 months, I fear
it's a bit too early for a Tesla in these conditions.

~~~
magicalhippo
My 2018 model BMW i3 reported about half the normal range when we drove it
during -20C without pre-heating it this winter. When pre-heated the range
reduction is primarily due to the occupants using electricity to heat up the
cabin.

But, as mentioned that doesn't mean half the range is gone, after a while the
batteries heat up and you get more available range. But it can take about an
hour or more, depending on driving, so you're looking at a fairly substantial
hit regardless.

Another point is that the car won't supercharge if the batteries are too cold.
If you regularly see -15C or below, you might want to consider a car which
allows you to remote start the heating and run the battery heater from the
batteries themselves, like Tesla does.

------
crimsonalucard
Once all cars are electric is global warming no longer an issue? What is the
main benefit of electric?

~~~
oldgradstudent
Air quality.

Even if there was no efficiency gain, electric cars move pollution out of city
streets and into less densely populated areas.

If electricity is produced using less polluting methods like hydroelectric
plants, then there's net benefit.

~~~
crimsonalucard
Such a massive push just for moving the pollution somewhere else.

~~~
llukas
Moving? Power plants have air filters.

I don't see how thousands of small scale filters that may or may not be
maintained (ie. in some countries people cut DPF out) are better than one big
efficient properly maintained industrial filter.

Also decoupling power generation from consumption allows for making overall
car energy usage greener over time. Not possible with ICE. [1]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-15/electric-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-15/electric-
cars-seen-getting-cleaner-even-where-grids-rely-on-coal)

~~~
crimsonalucard
[https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/electric-
cars-...](https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/electric-cars-
co2-emissions-global-warming/)

This article says that electric cars actually produce more CO2 emissions. Hard
to know what the truth is when sources are conflicting.

A conservative and logical estimate is that Electric Cars emit more CO2 gas
overall because it requires an extra conversion step.

Gasoline automobiles: Source --> Kinetic Energy

Electric automobiles: Source ---> Battery Power --> Kinetic Energy

Of course the real answer could be far more complicated since even gasoline
distribution causes energy usage itself. The controversy and hardness to find
a definitive answer makes it reasonable for me estimate that electric cars
don't really do any obvious net change in energy efficiency OR green house gas
reduction At All.

It doesn't match the hype.

~~~
llukas
Stop spreading FUD. There is no controversy data on CO2 per km of electric
with different energy mixes. Data of CO2 equivalent is fully available. (ie.
[http://www.neb-
one.gc.ca/nrg/ntgrtd/mrkt/snpsht/2018/09-01-1...](http://www.neb-
one.gc.ca/nrg/ntgrtd/mrkt/snpsht/2018/09-01-1hwrnrgprjctsfnncd-
eng.html?=undefined&wbdisable=true))

Yes, with _current_ energy mix electric cars in some places might be emitting
slightly more CO2.

Just for US data report quotes electric fleet averages on 54MPG - average MPG
of new ICE is 25MPG.

> A conservative and logical estimate is that Electric Cars emit more CO2 gas
> overall because it requires an extra conversion step.

Logical is to compare ICE vs electric drivetrain efficiency and
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle).

Even with dirtiest energy generation electric cars are not worse than normal
cars of similar size.

~~~
crimsonalucard
I'm spreading Fear? No I'm not. Doubt? Yes. I invite people to eliminate the
doubt, but don't accuse me of something I did not do.

Also the conclusion of my response is that electric cars don't make any
reasonable change to energy efficiency or green house gas emissions, which
your response fails to contradict.

~~~
llukas
> Also the conclusion of my response is that electric cars don't make any
> reasonable change to energy efficiency or green house gas emissions, which
> your response fails to contradict.

Is this not reasonable?

US data report quotes electric fleet averages on 54MPG - average MPG of new
ICE is 25MPG.

~~~
crimsonalucard
I ignored that because evs don't operate on mpg. It makes zero sense if coal
was the original source or if nuclear energy was the source. Miles per gallon
of uranium fissioned? What? Also your sources report is Canadian yet you quote
US data. You sourced incorrectly. Unreasonable? Yes.

I'm not a biased person if you clarify the implications of your "us data" and
it's sources I can completely reverse my opinion in an inhumanly unbiased way.

~~~
Retra
A gallon of fuel contains a fixed amount of usable energy. Motion from point A
to point B uses a minimal amount of energy. MPG equivalent is a perfectly
reasonable way to measure the efficiency of electric vehicles, and optimal if
you plan to compare them to ICE vehicles. MPG is only a proxy for distance per
unit energy anyway.

