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Comment by blamazon | Hacker News Reader

One reason I cannot just agree is Norway, which has anything but a mild climate, a low rate of garage ownership, and a lot of long distance rural journeying to go to places like Tromsø, and yet has 8 out of 10 new car buyers selecting EVs:

https://elbil.no/norway-celebrates-another-record-breaking-y...

And, in anecdata, I just did a 1000 mile road trip in my 2016 Tesla through many frigid places in the USA. It was fine. Your argument sounds a lot to me like "people don't/shouldn't ride bicycles when it's cold or snowing" and that's also demonstrably false in my opinion:

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2021/01/22/meet-the-bike-...

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1) Norway is ridiculously wealthy due to its petroleum resources.

2) Norway is only 5 million in population.

3) Norwegian policy encourages EV purchases with various fees and subsidies to encourage EV and discourage ICE.

Pointing out their unique social environment doesn't change the fact that people there are happily driving EVs that fit their lifestyle, despite living in a cold place with few garages and large rural expanses.

> the fact that people there are happily driving EVs that fit their lifestyle

Source?

Like the commenter you replied to, I think I'd have bought an EV for my last car if my ICE car had a 70% tax applied to it, but I wouldn't be happy about it, and it would only fit my budget, not my lifestyle.

I mean, my source is that I lived in Norway and know a lot of driving Norwegians, which I do understand is far from hard data on their true sentiments nationwide.

Norway is the pilot country for EVs. Their adoption rates have always led the world. Again, this is due to their peculiar wealth ( they have so much money that they can destroy their economy if they spend it domestically), and public policy that supports this end.

> Norway

A 70% tax on petrol cars will shift the scales somewhat. I really doubt 8/10 of new cars would be EVs if the VAT and purchase taxes were applied to them as for ICE cars.

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