42% of Norway’s car sales were pure battery electric, and almost 14% were plug-in hybrid. Tesla Model 3 was the best-selling car, with 11% of the market.
Source: 56% of Norway’s new cars had a plug in 2019, Tesla Model 3 overall best-seller – Electrek
- This story does not mention Norway deeply subsidizes the purchase of EVs by selling oil to other nations.
- In Norway, the price of a gas vehicle has about a 100% tax applied to it based on vehicle weight and engine size. EVs, though, are exempt from the registration tax and 25% value added tax.
- EVs pay half price on toll roads, public parking fees and ferry transport ships.
In other words, the government pays consumers massive subsidies to purchase EVs today.
The reporter says EVs are a success in Norway and if they can be so successful in Norway, EVs can be successful anywhere!
The reporter does mention oil subsidies (exaggerated by converting ordinary business tax credits that apply to all businesses into “oil subsidies”) but does not mention anything about Norway’s EV subsidies. The result is a fake news article by a dufus reporter.
- 99% of electricity production in Norway is from low-cost hydropower so using EVs is a cost-effective way to reduce CO2 emissions (unlike countries that source electricity mostly from burning coal and gas).
- Norway is a terrible location for solar PV so adopting EVs among a cheap hydropower infrastructure is the right solution for Norway.
- Because Norway has time limits on purchase incentives, Norway encouraged people to junk existing functional vehicles and replace today with EVs. This, however, results in excess lifetime CO2 emissions due to the manufacturing and disposal energy consumption issues issues versus driving existing vehicles as long as possible to reduce their overall, lifetime energy use and CO2 emissions.
So yes, EVs can be successful in any country with pre-existing cheap, non-CO2-producing power and where 50% or more of the EVs’ purchase price is subsidized by the government. This model surely works in all countries! Not.
What a crappy piece of journalism.
