Norway declares victory in move away from gas cars | Hacker News Reader

Norway declares victory in move away from gas cars

semafor.com

5 pointsbookofjoe14 comments

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> Oslo will now start to roll back some tax exemptions over the next two years

Close to 60% of Norwegian passenger vehicles still burn fossil fuels [1].

This smells more like belt tightening [2] than a victory lap.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_N...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-15/norway-ca...

~95% of light vehicles sold this year will be EVs. Fleet turnover will occur eventually, we're arguing time horizon.

Norway EV sales and related data - https://robbieandrew.github.io/EV/ (top two graphs tell the story)

EVs reach record 98.3 pct share of new car sales in Norway, surge across Europe - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45596668 - October 2025

Norway says 'mission accomplished' on going 100% EV, proposes incentive changes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45593746 - October 2025

Norway Is Uprooting Its Fuel Pumps as Electric Cars Take Over - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-03-28/norway... | https://archive.today/zZMep - March 28th, 2025

Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37966767 - October 2023

Norway EV Charger Map - https://placetoplug.com/en/charging-stations/norway/map

I’m not arguing Norway isn’t heading in the right direction faster than almost anyone else. It’s just premature to declare victory in any sense when you’re still mostly burning gas.

But for how long they will burn petroleum for transportation is locked in based on existing petrol fleet lifecycle. Could they pull forward "victory" by banning petrol vehicle use or forcing petrol stations to close immediately? Sure, but that is unlikely to be popular. Victory is locking in the future, I argue, to get to an inflection point where it would take overwhelming momentum to overcome the trajectory established. And Norway is at that inflection point, under the assumption that EV manufacturing ramp and sales rates continue upward, EV prices remain at current levels if not decline further, we have a rough idea of how many combustion vehicles remain in service and their estimated service life remaining, etc.

https://www.rystadenergy.com/news/norway-fuel-demand-electri...

https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Norway/gasoline_consumption...

https://www.ssb.no/en/energi-og-industri/olje-og-gass/statis...

Additional citation:

Monitoring CO2 emissions on Norwegian roads [pdf] - https://www.toi.no/getfile.php?mmfileid=74689 - January 2023

(Figure 15 shows several different scenarios, all resulting in Norway's road-transport emissions dropping by at least 90% from their peak by 2050.)

Most of those ICE cars will be off the roads in ~15 years, even if they were all brand new today. Less if they salt their roadways in the winter.

Some countries are starting to use magnesium chloride instead of salt. Downside is it takes twice as much and gets expensive, but less damage to cars.

Incredible given Norway is not known for its mild climate. I guess it really doesn't make much of a difference.

Most new cars in Norway are EVs. How a freezing country beat range anxiety - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44141407 - May 2025

Here's Why Norway Hasn't Had Trouble With Winter EV Charging - https://insideevs.com/news/705338/norway-winter-ev-charging-... - January 19th, 2024

EVs work fine in the cold in Norway - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39057299 - January 2024

https://archive.ph/DzrkA

Now they need to deal with used EV batteries...

https://businessnorway.com/articles/closing-the-recycling-ga...

> Hydrovolt has the capacity to process 12 000 metric tons of battery packs on annual basis, or enough to recycle the entirety of the Norwegian end-of-life battery market. The fully automated recycling process enables recycling of up to 95 per cent of battery materials, including aluminium and the “black mass” containing lithium, manganese and cobalt.

That's the PR. If you Google reality is less idyllic.

Citations welcome!

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