Hacker News Reader

Comment by samatman | Hacker News Reader

This is unlikely to be the central factor, given that Norway, one of the few inhabited places which is colder than Maine, has the highest rate of electric car ownership in the world.

That's in spite of the range issue, and is due to the Norwegian government carrot-and-sticking heavily towards electric. Maine has no such incentives, and is sparsely populated, which doesn't play to the strengths of electric cars.

View on HN

Norway has huge financial incentives for buying EVs, including exemption from VAT and registration fees. This has added up to billions of USD in subsidies, [1] and is why there are so many EVs in Norway. I'd be very surprised if their neighbors, who have similar climate but fewer incentives, see the same rate of adoption.

Norway shows that you can have EVs in a place that is very cold if you shovel cash at buyers. It doesn't prove that weather wouldn't be a central factor in a place like Maine.

1: https://www.oecd.org/climate-action/ipac/practices/norway-s-...

Also worth noting that in Norway, they will often have cars with engine block heaters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_heater), with associated plug points in parking spaces/places.

Makes it much easier if there's already infrastructure.

Maine is sparsely populated, but most of its population is concentrated in a narrow strip along the coast. Actually, this is probably true of Norway as well.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com