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Comment by Theodores | Hacker News Reader

Norwegians: Why would you buy an old fashioned petrol/diesel car when the electric version is nice and quiet, easier to drive, gets sold tax free, is able to whizz down the bus lanes, gets a free pass on toll roads, can be 'refuelled' for less and comes with free parking?

Obviously there is range but you can hire a car for that or just get the old car out of the garage.

You guys are going to be laughing at us and our 'Top Gear' broom-broom motoring culture in a few years time! Please do so loudly and shame us into changing our ways too.

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Because a Nissan Leaf still costs ~$30-35000 in Norway. I can buy a used, reliable, petrol car for under half of that.

And the incentives the Norwegian Government introduced to encourage people to buy electric cars, will not last forever. It will definitely last through 2017, but after that - no one knows. The Norwegian Government will probably lose too much money, if people stopped buying petrol cars today.

Not really - Norway exports a huge amount of oil. They have one of the world's biggest sovereign wealth funds from the proceeds. It's currently worth ~$700billion. Considering there are only 5 million people in the country, they are not short of cash. So - any oil usage saved is somewhat made up by export revenues which go back to the state.

Furthermore, the costs of electric cars will surely go down as economies of scale hit in, lessening the need for subsidies as time goes on.

Yes, we do have one of the biggest wealth funds. The problem is that we will probably have to spend more than we are spending today, if the income from taxes is reduced (our national budget will probably not become "cheaper" in the future). And if the demand for oil starts to decrease, maybe we'll spend more money than we are earning from oil export. I know this won't happen in the near future, but I still think that the electric cars will be taxed more one day. Other perks for electric car owners will probably be history in a few years too (electric cars clogging up the bus lanes).

That being said, I hope I'm wrong. I wouldn't mind owning an electric car, the day I need to own a car.

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