Comment by _delirium | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _delirium | Hacker News Reader

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The electricity:petrol price ratio is also more favorable in Norway than many other countries, thanks to a combination of high petrol taxes but not too expensive electricity (due to the large hydroelectric capacity).

For example, in California, typical petrol prices are around $0.85/L ($3.20/gal), and residential electricity prices are around $0.17/kWh. So you get about 5 kWh of electricity for the cost of a liter of petrol. Meanwhile in Norway, typical petrol prices are around $2.45/L ($9.25/gal), and residential electricity prices are around $0.25/kWh. So you get about 10 kWh of electricity for the cost of a liter of petrol.

edit: Actually might be an even bigger ratio. I was getting the Norwegian retail price of $0.25/kWh from Eurostat [1], but Statistics Norway gives a price of only $0.14/kWh [2]. Which would make for nearly 18 kWh for the cost of a L of petrol, 3-4x better ratio than in California.

[1] http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index....

[2] http://www.ssb.no/en/elkraftpris

For my own curiosity I completed the gasoline end of the math above. Hopefully I didn't botch any of it. If so, please correct me:

According to Wikipedia¹ the energy of gasoline is ≈11.8 kWh/kg at a density of ≈0.74 kg/l, giving us 8.7 kWh/l. For California, using the $0.85/l price, we get $0.10/kWh (rounded from $0.09770) for gasoline. Norway, at $2.45/l, gives us $0.28/kWh.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline#Energy_content

What this doesn't include is the efficiency of motors. Gasoline engines has an efficiency of 25-30%. Electrical cars are much more efficient (Tesla seems to quote 88% for Tesla Roadster). So while your calculation shows that you about break even, taking this into account should mean electricity is in the area of 3x cheaper in Norway (when used for powering cars).

I don't think it is about the fuel prices. While it is true that Norway has the highest petrol prices in the world, we have among the lowest fuel cost/income ratios in the world.

It is about getting 400+ hp at family barge prices.

(And that is okay by me. We need more people to drive electric cars so we can evolve and develop them. And Norway is a great place to do that because of the hostile climate and the even more hostile politicians and their medieval ideas of what constitutes a "road")

edit: link for reference http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/gas-prices/20133:Norway

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