Electric cars grab 44% market share in Norway in January | Hacker News Reader

Electric cars grab 44% market share in Norway in January

reuters.com

51 pointsckastner32 comments

Yes Norway has invested in public charging infrastructure, has tax incentives that penalize ICE's, cheap plentiful renewable energy, etc. etc. etc.

But still, seeing stats like this shows the electrification of transportation can be done if a country makes it a priority. The technology is different, not inferior.

In the US where infrastructure investment to create a conducive environment is shouted down in favor of "well, customers aren't demanding this so we're not going to build this", what's promising is this Sunday was the Superbowl of the EV ads:

- GM Hummer EV teaser: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t6EPPJHaCtw

- Audi E-Tron: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WvEAklsAAts

- Porsche Taycan: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=92sXWVxRr0g

- (Apparently some markets also saw a Mach-E ad)

When car companies are finally spending millions on their EV offerings at one of the largest automotive advertising debutant balls, sentiment is beginning to change.

> has tax incentives that penalize ICE's

You can seriously distort the competitive landscape if you are willing to put a 100% tax on one of the alternatives. A lot can be achieved with unlimited amounts of other people's money.

I completely agree -- the competitive landscape gets seriously distorted when you play with the tax code and shift costs onto someone else:

https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subs...

Oil is the lifeblood of the US economy.

In times of economic recession, we often blame the government and get rid of them.

We've clearly signaled with our voting patterns what we want and government has delivered on it - a reliable supply of oil to power the economy. Hence subsidies.

On the other side the Norwegian government has managed to implement the world's highest tax on ICE cars and survive re-election so presumably that's what the electorate wants.

For those unaware, ICE vehicles are taxed at something like 100%+ their sale value. Whereas electric vehicles don't pay that and don't pay tolls and many other fees that are common in Norway.

It's not a surprise that electric is taking over there. They're incredibly cheap compared to ICE.

Is it actually higher than Singapore's at least 100% import tax? Granted, Singapore charges that tax for both petrol and electric cars.

https://www.dollarsandsense.sg/no-nonsense-explanation-on-wh...

2015: A Chevrolet Camaro (3.6 litre V6) is over 156,000 dollars here in Norway (if I were to import). Why?

    Value-added tax = 9,000 dollars
    Tax for the weight of the car = 15,000 dollars
    Engine tax (horepowers mostly) = 27,000 dollars
    CO2 tax = 72,000 dollars
    N0x-tax (nitrogen oxide) = 1000 dollars
    First-time registration (to get license plates, don't know what this is called in us) = 115,000 dollars
    In case you want-to-scrap-your-car-tax = 400 dollars

Total taxes for a Chevrolet Camaro V6? 125,000 dollars.

https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/2iql6h/how_and_why_ca...

$72k co2 tax! That's epic, this is how you deprecate ICE vehicles.

That's a specific car but if you are interested you can use the government calculator and do your own numbers:

https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/person/duties/cars-and-other-...

Is the co2 tax only applicable to imports?

I don't believe Norway has an indigenous car manufacturing industry, at least not one that makes ICE cars, so all cars are imported.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Car_manufacturers_of_...

So is there no co2 tax paid on used vehicle purchases?

I'm mostly curious how this impacts lower income folks who won't likely be able to afford a shiny new EV.

Seems like the country has a new name, "oil-producer Norway".

Look, oil production is going to be around for a long, long time. Even when 99% of new vehicles are EV and 99% of power production is renewable, we will still be pumping and refining oil. There are use cases where oil-based products will be necessary basically forever, even after global warming has been neutralized. This doesn't mean Norway doesn't care about the environment.

For those who don't follow stocks very closely Tesla is up another 17% today to $757. This has almost tripled in a few months. Insanity.

Meanwhile in the Netherlands Tesla sales dropped from ~12000 in December 2019 to ~36 in January 2020 because the tax advantage disappeared.

Electric cars are always doing that in Norway:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Wow, nice. Ever closer to a tipping point with electric cars and infrastructure.

Certainly confidence is increasing. Tesla's stock still soaring, breaking another milestone today (>$700).

It's hard to understand why the stock is soaring. I don't think it has to do with sales.

Is it from inflation of USD due to the federal reserve? Is it a bubble with current owners fomo?

I really don't think it's Tesla being Tesla. They just aren't competitive in the luxury market or for a 35k USD car.

I wonder how the colder climate effects vehicles in this market.

Energy consumption increases, but charging stations are ubiquitous and economic incentives plentiful in Norway. Geographic areas with colder climates frequently have block heater power available; similarly you want power available for "shore power" to keep the battery charging and conditioned when it's exceptionally cold.

Norway's electrical generation is almost 100% renewable, so the additional energy consumption is a moot point. EVs also make an excellent sink of power in aggregate ("controllable distributed load") for renewable generation that might have had to be curtailed and wasted.

An interesting aside. The London bus that I get from Waterloo to my office is electrical. And yet on a cold January morning it smells worse of diesel fumes than the other buses as it has diesel heaters providing heat.

I guess it's a sign of how efficient they are that there is not a suitable source of low grade waste heat from either the motors or the batteries.

Colder climate hurts range on electric vehicles.

On the plus side for EV adoption in colder climates, they've got outlets everywhere for people to plug in the block heaters on their cars, so they're totally ready in terms of public slow-charging infrastructure.

Doesn't it hurt range, but increase battery longevity?

ISTR hot climates being more problematic for EV owners in terms of premature battery wear.

No, batteries do not like to be too hot, nor too cold. There is an operating range. This is why Teslas keep their packs cool in the heat, but will also restrict charge rate from regeneration or charging (yellow dotted line on energy consumption graph) until the pack has been brought up to operating temp.

Hot climates killed Nissan LEAF packs faster because of poor (air cooling) thermal management. Tesla packs use liquid cooling, and aggressively manage the battery pack to ensure longevity.

Cold climates reduce EV range. However, cold climates also reduce mileage for gas cars.

https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/coldweather.shtml

This underlines the observation that internal combustion engine is officially dead. It's just waiting to be buried.

I mean, with ICEs being taxed at something like 120%, it's not a surprise, is it?

I think it's only a surprise that other countries don't force drivers to pay the externalities of a combustion vehicle. EVs are still making a great showing globally, and market penetration will increase as costs come down. Combustion vehicles aren't "dead", but it wouldn't be outrageous to call the peak; China is one of the largest markets in the world and they are pushing hard to go straight to EVs. Legacy automakers will follow or die.

You wouldn't sit in the garage with a combustion vehicle running; the planet is simply a bigger, shared garage.

Now that EVs are proven, perhaps it's time people lean harder on their governments to sunset unnecessary combustion vehicles. Norway intends to prohibit new combustion vehicles purchases in 2025. Several other countries 2030. I expect this trend to ramp as EVs get cheaper and climate change accelerates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic... (Jurisdictions with planned fossil-fuel vehicle bans)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but none of these are actually banning petrol/diesel car sales at all. A hybrid/plug-in hybrid cars are exempt - so pretty much every manufacturer has a "mild-hybrid" version of every model, with something like a tiny 1kW battery to help with the initial movement, and that's enough to get around this ban. No?

True! But it's likely you see these sorts of hybrids phased out, similar to how Chevy killed the Volt in favor of full battery electric vehicles. The ban can change to be more onerous at any time, and manufacturing capex decisions are decided on decade timelines. It would be a shame if you attempted such a compliance hack only to have your manufacturing line lifetime profitability nuked with the stroke of a legislative pen.

ICE captured 56% of the market despite a 100% tax disadvantage. To me that indicates ICE is alive and well.

ICEs won't be dead until they're difficult to find/afford to fuel and operate reliably on a daily basis.

At some point it seems inevitable, but I don't think we'll be seeing gas stations closing down any time soon. There's still a lot of oil to be burned.

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