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Comment by socialdemocrat | Hacker News Reader

Tesla is almost 25% of the sales in Norway. Counting Tesla's on the road has started to become a bit silly.

Just walking up to my local grocery story in Oslo, I may see 6-7 Tesla's on that short walk. I only realize how abnormal that is when it is when I travel abroad. Spent several days in London and didn't see a single Tesla.

Spent a week in Spain and didn't even see an electric car at all. In Norway there are Leafs, BMW i3, e-Golf, Teslas, Ionic, you name it going around all the time.

What is interesting to observe is how it just accelerates. The more normal it gets to drive electric the more people jump onboard. A lot of people are reluctant to try something entirely different. But then they drive in their friends electric car or sit in an electric cab etc and it all starts to look really normal.

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That’s no surprise, since Norwegian government heavily penalizes ICE vehicles, and advantages the electric cars. No VAT, no CO2 tax, and lots of other incentives are involved.

If your goal is to upgrade your country’s vehicle fleet to electric, then Norway is a good example that with enough government spending it can happen. Don’t mistake it for “normal people jumping onboard electric train”, though, they are jumping onboard tax incentives train.

It's a car, and an expensive one. Very few people would base their decision only on the tax incentives.

I don’t think you realize how much cars cost in Norway the country has an effective tax rate on cars that is over 100%.

A new Ford Focus with all taxes and fees will cost you around $50,000, the base model without fees alone starts at around $35,000 (320,000 NOK).

That’s a $12-13K car in the US, a Tesla on the otherhand might cost you even lower than the US sticker price under some circumstances, especially on the officially refurbished ones.

Add other benefits on top of that and the fact that petrol in Norway costs $7 per gallon, money is the pretty much the only reason why people buy Tesla’s and other EVs at such high rates in Norway.

To contrast this with Sweden, another heavily taxed country, we bought a new Mazda 6 Wagon in 2016 and it cost us 313000 SEK (~289000 NOK), fully loaded with all the trimmings and an extra set of winter tyres on rims to boot.

Car prices in Norway are crazy high.

The 2018 Focus had a starting MSRP around $17.5k. I'm not really sure what they actually listed for at dealerships and I'm having a hard time finding info on the 2019 Focus being sold in the US. But, yeah obviously this is a much less expensive car in the US. $50k for a compact is ridiculous.

The Focus isn’t considered a compact car in countries like Denmark, where it’s priced similarly to Norway. The Focus is a midsize car.

The Norway new car tax is above 100% for ICEs. So you can either buy a 30k ICE or 60k Tesla (which is taxed 0%), and get a lot more value for your money - in addition to that you have free parking in the cities too for electrics.

In Norway every single person buying a new car makes the decision based on tax incentives to a large extent.

As a (fellow?) Norwegian, I beg to differ. Some of us thinks electric cars are both great cars and environmentally friendly, and make buying decisions based on those two.

All I’m saying is that no Norwegian (or anyone else) ignores price in a purchase decision, and the one time fees for cars in Norway are so large that no one can ignore them. Those that are inclined to purchase a hybrid or EV isn’t exactly going to be discouraged by the tax/fee rebates.

Also, price of gas is 2.5x higher in Norway than somewhere like the USA.

If you're in the USA and fill your tank once a week, you probably spend ~$2000/yr in gas. And that's how much you'd save in gas if you went electric.

In areas with higher fuel prices, the incentive is proportionally larger.

(That's ignoring the cost of paying your electric bill, not sure if that changes the math much..)

It depends on what price you pay for Electricity, but paying for the electricity is more than half as cheap as paying for gas. Plus in the US there are so many free chargers, I just charge my car at the office.

I have a suspicion that as electric cars become more common, free chargers will become less so. Providing free chargers (i.e. subsidizing people's driving expenses) may be great PR for businesses, municipalities, etc., as long as there are relatively few people using them, but will not be sustainable as demand increases.

And as more people shift from ICE-powered vehicles to electric ones, it seems likely that some of the taxes currently imposed on gasoline may end up applying to electric charging as well, as governments will need to maintain the revenue somehow.

One counterbalancing force is renewables and using cars as part of demand response.

If solar energy that would otherwise go to waste can be stored in cars, then that reduces the chance the car will need charged at another time and save the utility money.

I can imagine plugs that you connect to for free when parked, that only give you as much power as they want but that will also let you buy express power when absolutely required via an app.

Plenty of places already charge an equivalent to gas taxes for electric vehicles. In my US state, it's paid with your yearly registration.

My city initially gave away free charging to lower air pollution, which wasn't on your list of reasons. 6 years after that start, they've started charging.

Yeah, I pay over double to the state for my electric car in extra EV taxes than I would for state gas taxes. It's actually punitive for EV owners (ostensibly because they're "rich," but I bought mine used and am definitely not rich).

> I have a suspicion that as electric cars become more common, free chargers will become less so. (Free charging) will not be sustainable as demand increases.

For "superchargers" and other fast charging, I agree.

But slower L2 entry-level chargers are so cheap, and electricity so cheap, I don't see free charging going away entirely. Already in Michigan, it's cheaper to just give away free L2 charging to anyone who wants it, than it costs to keep the lot clear of snow in the winter.

I suspect slow charging will become similar to Salt / Sugar packets in restaurants. Free basically anywhere that abuse or insane land costs aren't a problem (so free basically everywhere except major cities)

Yup. And equivalent to providing free parking. You have a captive audience, and the price isn't high. Any time I use one of those "free" level 2 chargers, I always buy something where it's possible to do so. You're only talking like one or two dollars worth of electricity (I think people who don't have electric cars don't realize this), and then only if I stay an hour or three.

If I could seemlessly pay about 120% of my residential rate to slow charge, I would for convenience sake alone. But no one has really figured this out, yet.

> You're only talking like one or two dollars worth of electricity (I think people who don't have electric cars don't realize this),

Yeah, I get the impression a lot of people don't really know what electricity costs. Like, they know what their monthly utility bill is, but they probably don't know what that bill was really for, in any measurable units.

If someone (for example), charges at a L2 charger @ 3.3kw at a restaurant for an hour, in the state of Michigan, they've used up about 53 cents worth of electricity. That's all the restaurant paid for that electricity. For that 53 cents, their car probably got an extra 10 to 13 miles of range.

Right. The cost of the electricity for L2 charging is much less than the fully burdened price of providing free parking (or using the bathroom, etc).

Taking a Chevrolet Bolt on a road trip, we look for places with L2/L3 chargers when we stop for a meal, quick shopping trip, etc. Simply having the charger there makes us choose those businesses over others. We alter our routes based on the charging network.

>If you're in the USA and fill your tank once a week, you probably spend ~$2000/yr in gas. And that's how much you'd save in gas if you went electric.

The electric bill makes a big difference, because you're really looking at the relative cost of two different forms of energy -- electrical and chemical (fuel). The last time I calculated it, the cost of running an ICE was around 20% more expensive (in my area) than a BEV, but a PHEV was within a percent or so of owning a BEV.

I'm curious to know what percentage of EV owners in Norway have a second car. I'd imagine the uptake rate for families that can afford to own more than one vehicle is significantly higher than for those that can't, but I've never seen any stats on the matter. The reality is that for most people, a car is the second largest purchase they'll ever make (if not the largest), so utility has to be high on the list of priorities. I'm not entirely convinced EVs have the utility to overtake ICE vehicles just yet, especially when incentives are removed.

Anecdotally, thousands of Norwegians have a Tesla as their only car. The Supercharger network makes long trips completely painless, practically equivalent with an ICE vehicle.

I've never understood the range complaints beyond 400km. As long as your car can drive 130km/h or faster it is suitable for a road trip.

It is almost impossible to repair the damage that CO2 emissions cause. You need an even bigger clean energy source to reverse the damage so it is always more efficient to use that energy to never cause emissions in the first place. EVs are a way to reduce emissions at the cost of waiting for them to charge during road trips. But for some stupid inexplicable reason no one actually wants that trade off.

People will adapt. For most people, it's not an inconvenience to stop for 15-20 minutes every four hours on a road trip. They'd have stopped at those intervals anyway, unless they're running military discipline in their driving routine.

Market forces ensure that charging spots will be located in spots where people want to stop and spend money on food, drinks, bathroom breaks. This is what already happens with Tesla's charging network.

These habits will change once people organically get to experience the better driving experience that a properly engineered EV gives.

Yea, so the cost of electricity is 25c/kWh (NYC). 3 miles per kWh or 0.08 per mile (not including charging efficiency).

City: 20 miles per gallon ($2.75/gal) or 0.13 per mile Highway: 30mpg or 0.09c. Hybrid: 40mpg or 0.07c.

Tesla is too expensive for a very little benefit, smaller EVs have tiny range. Hybrids would be cheaper than a Tesla.

Hybrids are being phased out (as Chevy did with the Volt).

Prius are doing just fine, so are Honda hybrids, especially plug-ins

Prius sales have dropped off a cliff. Sales are down six years in a row. Peak sales were 236,000 in 2012, and just 87,000 last year.

Part of that is that there's a lot more hybrid competition for the Prius than there used to be.

Toyota has sold over 10 million hybrid vehicles in the last 20 years:

https://global.toyota/en/detail/14940871

But I bet they're crying all the way to the bank.

Chevy Bolt has very workable range. ~230 EPA

I had no idea electricity was so expensive in NYC. Also, I think 3 miles per kWh is a bit pessimistic. Lifetime average for my Model 3 is 260 Wh/mi, which works out to 3.8 mi/kWh. Given Colorado's ~$0.11/kWh, it all works out to just under $0.03/mi which looks a lot more favorable against the other options. It's still a heckin' expensive car though.

I pay the same rate, but if I switched to peak charging rates, I can pay only $.025/kWh for most of the day. And then $.25/kWh during a few peak hours. Making a Tesla a lot cheaper to drive.

In Norway, I generally count about 0.2 NOK (€0.02) pr km for my model X and about 0.15 NOK/km for my Vw e-up.

The same prices for dino juice in my quite efficient toyota avensis and current fuel prices was about 0.7-0.8 NOK/km. That car is now sold and will never be missed.

The savings are huge, especially if you drive a lot.

>Yea, so the cost of electricity is 25c/kWh (NYC)

Is that 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

That's the same rate from ConEd. It's actually more like like 27c or 28c. 9c for electricity, 13c or more for delivery and rest taxes. I paid $370 for like 1350kwh last July, I switched to solar last August and that will pay itself in about 5 years.

There are TOU rates, but there are from 8am to midnight.

Charging overnight is how to take advantage of TOU rates. Fortunately electric cars support charging schedules.

Apparently average price per gallon in Norway is $7.06[1]. Today, I paid $2.42 for gas in rural Illinois. So 3x, but I also pay less for electricity in general, so idk if it pays off.

I probably spend around $1500/year on gas with my 17-25mpg Jeep.

Honestly, Tesla really still can’t compete with the fact I have to haul stuff and drive a few hundred miles. so not an option for me anyway.

[1] https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/Norway/gasoline_prices/

It's amazing to me as an American how little need Europeans have for large American-style vehicles. I see Audi station wagons in Switzerland pulling horse trailers (with horses in them), doing 100mph on the freeway. In the US, anyone who pulls a horse trailer once a year would have a dualie diesel HD3500 with exhaust stacks, as their daily driver.

Warning: somewhat off topic comment to follow.

I've noticed reverse anecdotal evidence when I saw cars with ridiculous 6.5l engines in the US and Canada. It's amazing to me with my western European background how energy inefficient the US and Canada are per USD of GDP.[0][1]

It must be so much harder as an individual to make energy saving choices in an environment where those are an afterthought.

[0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.KD.GD [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ratio_of_...

Both in trash and energy. We consume a ton per capita.

I'm still mildly ok with that. But what really gets me is the same dualie diesel with a single occupant and an empty bed towing absolutely nothing.

> (That's ignoring the cost of paying your electric bill, not sure if that changes the math much..)

If we ignore the cost of gas, it'll also change the math...

Needless to say, need to include all costs for a fair comparison. A few years ago when my wife had a Fiat 500e and I was commuting on a 1988 Honda CRX (~40 mpg). The energy cost was higher for the Fiat than the Honda at the time. (Electricity is very expensive in CA). Gas has gone up lately (but then, so has PG&E), I haven't run the numbers in recent years. Might be a wash now.

Gas an electricity prices vary widely so do the math for your area, but don't ignore any costs.

I’m also in CA, and I ran the numbers on my plug-in C-MAX. It is roughly a wash (and the gas mileage is pretty unimpressive, at 35 MPG). It’s convenient to never have to go to the gas station (we average 110 MPG overall), but it’s sad that there’s no savings/incentive to actually be on electric with this vehicle).

It could be different for other vehicles that are more efficient (don’t have ICE components to lug around), or for people with their own solar charging.

PGE EV-A rate plan has been $0.13/kWh. Fiat 500e gets about 4 mi/kWh, so about $0.0325 per mile. Assuming gas price over that period averaged $2.50, then at 40mpg gas cost $0.0625 per mile. Which looks like twice as much, not nearly the same.

Here in the Netherlands electricity is 25 cents per kWh and up to 59 cents per kWh for a fast charger next to the highway, if you don't have a subscription with them. Some chargers also have a starting cost and/or parking fees included. The 59 cents is close to what a fuel efficient diesel costs.

In the future you will only get 8 cents per kWh for what your solar panels generate and put back into the grid. At that point charging your car will be a very good proposition, because you are practically filling it with 8 cents per kWh.

Model 3 appears to be the #6 best selling car in USA last quarter* and I don't believe there is much of any USA tax incentive anymore.

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/10/06/tesla-model-3-6th-best-...

$1850 federal tax incentive, $1500 in my state. It doesn’t close the cost gap with ICE, but it sure is nice.

That's sedans (a small and shrinking portion of the auto market), not vehicles. If you count passenger vehicles, the Model 3 is #27 YTD.

It's cars, not sedans.

Trucks have taken over US passenger vehicles. With consequence for pedestrian safety, parking spaces, space between vehicles on the road, and fuel consumption.

Keep in mind that the best selling passenger vehicles are not called "car" in the US statistics, but "light trucks". The number of light trucks sold in September 2019 is almost three times the number of "passenger cars".

https://www.marklines.com/en/statistics/flash_sales/salesfig...

Tesla is heading that direction too with Model Y coming out next year and the truck they are expected to announce in November. This will be interesting to watch.

I can't find the right reference, but I remember that such "light trucks" (e.g. Ford F150) enjoy a different tax and tariff compared to cars, and that's why several car companies have pushed them to the market.

The tariff is on foreign imports, which results in domestic trucks being privileged over foreign ones. It has nothing to do with customers choosing light trucks over cars, and if anything, it should rather incentivize customers buying cars over trucks, as there's more competition there, and so presumably lower prices.

It's not just F150's and other "real" trucks. Car based platforms make up the bulk of SUVs now. They are only trucks in name for the purpose of gaming fuel economy regulations. The PT Cruiser was among the first to start this trend.

That really reinforces the root comment's point about fashions in vehicle choice / driving what everyone else does being the 'safe option'. The countries most similar in culture and affluence to the US don't seem to buy those passenger utility vehicles and passenger cars in nearly the same proportions, so fashion looks like a big part of vehicle choice.

Does it?

In Canada [1] -- looks like about 3 out of the top 10 models are "passenger cars".

In Australia [2] - it's the same thing. 3 out of 10 are passenger cars (and both have a top 2 being a pickup - although the .au spread isn't as wide as .ca)

Looking at models doesn't shed too much light, because some categories have their sales more concentrated across a few models than others. The post I was responding to used "The number of light trucks sold in September 2019 is almost three times the number of 'passenger cars'."

For Australia the same figure was 2.4 times ( https://www.caradvice.com.au/797477/vfacts-september-2019/ ) and 2.1 times in August - though this is only a recent change in the Australian market (passenger car sales being down considerably in 2019 versus 2018).

But yeah, the difference isn't as much as I thought it was, primarily because I didn't realise until looking into it now that crossover SUVs like RAV4s and CX-5s are considered 'light trucks' in those US figures.

There are two things that drive the popularity of small SUVs/Crossovers in the US. First, gas is cheap: $2.50 a gallon vs ~$5.50 a gallon in the EU. One can get the benefit of more space and safety without paying an energy penalty. Second, the average household size is 3.1 in the US vs 2.3 in the EU. 22% of US households have 4 or more people. There is a demand for larger cars to carry more people.

how come americans have much bigger families than europeans? is it due to a higher immigration % of the general population or do "native" americans have more children than europeans?

I was under the impression children per woman correlates pretty well to economic development.

gas is not $2.50/ga everywhere. in california it’s around $5/ga atm. i think the big difference is how spread out things are in the US vs EU. in the EU i may very well be able to go on a road trip in a electric vehicle. in the US, given how few charging stations there are this isn’t really possible.

Note that every other auto manufacturers has multiple models that they offer in the 'upper-middle-range sedan' price range.

Tesla offers one. Of course its per-model numbers are going to be higher, compared to its marketshare.

An equivalent perspective would be that their marketshare will increase significantly when they introduce more models. An "SUV" (crossover) and a pickup.

They already have an SUV. Its called the Model X.

1. Model X sales aren't great, compared to SUV vs sedan sales for other manufactuers.

2. Other manufacturers have multiple mid-range sedan models. Honda has the Civic, the Insight, the Accord, the Clarity, and the Fit hatchback. Their sales are being split across five different low-mid-range models. Tesla has one. Toyota has the Yaris, the Corolla, the Prius, the Camry, the Avalon, and if you're some kind of lunatic, who for some insane reason wants a hydrogen fuel cell car, the Mirai. Again, for other auto manufacturers, sales in the same price/specs/form factor are split across five different models.

3. There's no reason to believe that five different Tesla sedan models are going to lead to anywhere close to 5x the demand. I mean, maybe if 4 of them are ICEs...

Model X sales are good compared to other luxury SUVs.

The idea that Tesla would be better off introducing ICEs is just insane. A quick way to bankruptcy (like all those other new domestic car makers who tried to start up the last ~100 years). People want the long-range, properly engineered EVs that Tesla makes. But I do realize you’re trolling.

How much do they offer?

I've seen estimates that over its lifetime an EV purchased in America saves society about $20,000. Though at least one component of that will be higher in Norway as their grid is so clean that it'll be even better on health impacts.

I'm not sure that a society continuously voting for sane, reality-based economic policies over a few decades is different from "normal people jumping on board the electric train" if that's where they end up. Who else should they "blame" for this sensible and rational policy if not themselves?

The Norwegian government has support for its EV policies from the 'normal people' who voted it in.

Every poll I've seen across a range of countries shows strong interest in and support for the transtion to EVs. Sometimes the national governments ignore this support (e.g. in my own country of Australia) but I'm not aware of any country where the government is ahead of interest and support from 'normal people', including Norway.

Having someone else to pay for a large part of your purchase is a very powerful initiative.

Yes, being allowed to dump a massive externality onto others does make cars quite a bit cheaper than if you had to pay their full cost. That's true for all cars, of course, though more for some than others.

Well, price also holds people back. An entry level Tesla with autopilot is still north of $40k after taxes (even with the break).

Average price of a new car in the US is $37k. 17 million new cars a year sold in the US. Price isn’t as big of an issue as it’s made to be. If you can’t afford a Tesla, you probably should only be looking at affordable used cars anyway (like a Toyota or Honda for $10k-$20k).

That’s the average but what’s the median? The long tail on new car prices crosses multiple orders of magnitude.

Looks like for light vehicles it’s bimodal, with peaks at both $28k and $40k: https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fact-989-augus...

Different strokes I guess.

For me it’s the utility factor. I can get a well equipped, 4 door Tacoma for $32k. That’s a hell of a lot more useful to me than a $40k Tesla. Perhaps if Tesla had a small sized pickup for less than $45k I’d give it a look, but their lower-end options just aren’t that attractive.

When you’re looking at a vehicle that’s the size of a civic, that isn’t a fun sports car, I just don’t see how the average American can justify it. I’m not exactly sure who Tesla Model 3 is supposed to be competing with. It’s not cheap enough to compete with Honda, Toyota, etc. and it’s not expensive enough to compete with luxury brands like Mercedes, Lexus, etc.

Most Americans don't need a pickup truck (I know, the horror of such a statement). If you value the added utility, different strokes. Tesla is pulling sales from entry level models produced by luxury manufacturers, but also pulling sales from people who would've traditionally paid less for a non luxury vehicle. My brother badly wanted a 4Runner until I let him borrow my Model S for a week. He then decided he couldn't live with anything other than a Model 3 or S.

I expect Tesla sales to increase further with the introduction of the Y crossover built on the 3 platform.

If you don't have an SUV or pickup truck, how would people know that you have an active lifestyle?

Different flexes for different folks.

Kinda. People in the US spending that much money on a car are more likely to be buying larger utility vehicles (SUV's and CUV's).

So price does indeed become an issue because they're different buying segments. People shopping for the larger vehicles tend to be buying them because of greater usability and comfort for driver and passengers.

The Model 3 sits firmly in the compact sedan segment, something entirely different. The people buying those are either looking for pure economy while not having the issues of a used car (in which case starting price is around $20,000), or they're buying in the luxury car segment which is where the M3 is, meaning it's no different then buying an Audi A3.

All teslas come with Autopilot I believe

Also they might last longer than a badly built ICE car, so over time the ratio will become even more skewed towards electric cars.

I've seen quite a lot of electric cars in Barcelona this summer. Mostly Teslas, BMW i3s, and some Renaults with the plug hidden behind the front logo. The main street, the Diagonal, has charging stations, and often I saw plugged-in cars charging there.

Go to the Bay Area California.

That said, never saw a Telsa in snow.

In all honesty, it only sells well because of the tax benefits. Do the actual math and then figure out how many people would then buy and use it. Likely not a lot.

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