Every time Norway comes up as an example… there are 5.5m people in Norway vs 334m in the USA.
So if you prefer, the question could be why not a single American state is anywhere near Norway in the EV transition.
Norway is roughly the size of Montana with the population of Minnesota.
American states are pretty different. Many have scattered populations. Some have abundant hydro power. There’s even a state with a permanent fund for oil income:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund
The Alaska fund is smaller than the Norwegian one, but it pays out an annual income to all residents, so it’s not really comparable either. I suspect the Alaska fund may have been one inspiration for the Norwegian model.
The Bay Area is a good example of the latter with Oakland and San Francisco being in the same metro area. It’s the metro where things like public transit become valuable options, or charging infrastructure for commutes is important, etc.
So why don’t they have a similar adoption rate? I don’t see how the “but USA is bigger” means that ALL of USA is completely off the hook.
EDIT: Ugh, thinking, typing and using a search engine. The above is wrong. They all have a higher population density than Norway. The following states have a lower population density:
Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota
The argument stands, but the list of states was wrong. ;)
Thinking about it I’m not totally sure so I looked up Norway’s size and population density, which seems to most closely match Kansas (37/mi^2 vs 35.9 for KS) and the land area of KS is a bit less than half, so it seems two kansases is a decent approximation for Norway, ignoring the coast/shape, just for a sense of scale. Of course Norway has a 1.5T fund and maybe they spend more? Figuring the per capita budget for both they are pretty close, so apart from cultural and topographical differences this seems like a pretty close fit.
Hint. Minneapolis to Houston is a shorter distance than Lindesnes to Nordkapp
I’m just looking for a better yardstick, and I have experienced Kansas firsthand. Lots of comments about the relative sizes of countries and I was curious what some of the basic numbers looked like.
Also low population coupled with a lot of revenue from oil/gas means that EVs are much more affordable (or rather ICE cars were very expensive due to taxes, so EVs still seemed like a great deal to many Norwegians despite being very expensive).
EVs are now more or less cheaper in total costs of ownership now, so with some political will the transition could have been faster without hurting the wallet in the long term. Some special car loan policies might have been needed though.
There simply are no excuses. With a big political push this transition could have been kickstarted with the GM EV1. Some extra research grants and some political pressure on cheap licensing terms for LFP batteries could have helped get batteries to where they need to be.
But there’s also no use thinking about the world that could’ve been. There are many reasons why USA isn’t where Norway is.
The point that stands is that Norway has shown that it can be done, and that should inform USA and others in how they move forward.
Most of the excuses made now don’t make sense. Norway isn’t an ideal country for EVs. Winter is brutal on range. Most American live in warmer climates. Norwegians also love to drive to far away mountain cabins in winter. My Norwegian relatives do more road trips than my family in the US.
Some excuses have some truth to them. Norway does have cheap electricity. But USA has resources Norway don’t. All in all the excuses don’t add up to anything that can justify inaction going forward.
Not coal though. Wouldn't it better to primarily focus on closing every single coal plant first? (also I would assume the same is the case for the type of 'oil' burnt in power plants, only gas is relatively "clean". Then you also have all kinds of other pollution that's much more harmful directly than CO2)
> All in all the excuses
Norway was very well positioned to shift to EV because of the very high taxes on new cars there, they just had to cut taxes to do that. Doing the equivalent (i.e. 50-75% tax on ICE cars) in the US or most other countries is simply politically infeasible. I know moralizing can be fun but it doesn't really offer real practical solutions.
> EVs are now more or less cheaper in total costs of ownership now
That really depends on the state (of course higher taxes on petrol would help but again, politically infeasible)
Hence I clarified.
Small population with tons of free money to subsidise the transition to ev.
> Norway Number of Registered Vehicles was reported at 5,410,000 Unit in Dec 2022.
with 110k to 190k new cars registered annually sounds doable, no?
Also they have very high revenue per person from oil sales.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/744826/budget-revenue-of...
Maximum is 17.6%. I pay 42% in Germany. I happily take those Norwegian „high taxes”.
"46.4% (53.0% including 14.1% social security contribution by employer. All taxes include 8.2% pension fund payments)"
Also indirect taxes like VAT are higher than in Germany.