The fact is, Norway drills and exports more oil per capita than Saudi Arabia.[1]<p>Their wealth and ability to buy electric cars at home is largely dependent on that massive oil income. They don't refine oil locally and would have to buy back gasoline, so electric cars still make economic sense too.<p>Norway is a beautiful country that the rest of the world often tries to emulate, but their economy is rooted in a darker side.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Energy/Oil/Production/Per-capita" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Energy/Oil/P...</a>
TL; DR "After years of subsidies, more than a fifth of Norway’s automobile fleet is now battery powered. As a result, gasoline use has fallen by 37% since 2013, according to data from Eurostat...<p>Though electric cars accounted for 23% of miles driven in Norway in 2022, diesel still accounted for 43% of the distance covered. Heavier trucks, which for technological reasons haven’t seen widespread adoption of electric drive trains, are still predominantly running on diesel, Norwegian Road Federation Director Oyvind Solberg Thorsen said in an interview.<p>Diesel consumption in Norway is just 10% below its 2015 peak and has yet to show a consistent downtrend, with demand rebounding since 2020, according to data from Statistics Norway. It’s a similar story for aviation."
Another equally viable title, one which does not involve as much fear, would be: "Norways' gasoline use down 37% since 2013 as over 1/5th of cars now electric"<p>Their point of heavier trucks, trains, and planes not going electric yet is true, they're simply higher up the difficulty curve.<p>The electric trucks are starting to roll out, from the bottom of the range and working up.
The next obvious step is to transition short haul trucks to electric, and then slowly ramp up the range. Tesla Semi is a decent proof of concept to show that fuel savings can offset the cost of the massive batteries, at least for shorter trips.<p>The other option for long haul trucking is hydrogen. In the short term that's probably more realistic than full electric.<p>We are absolutely making progress towards eliminating emissions for all vehicle types, its just taking longer than most would like.
Haven't read the article yet but this reminded me of a chart arguably showing Norway's oil use has actually gone up: <a href="https://twitter.com/NJHagens/status/1669072120939159553" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://twitter.com/NJHagens/status/1669072120939159553</a>
This article from late 2022 has good graphs on the data, including how sales translate to fleets, fleets translate to distance driven and how distance driven correlates with gasoline purchases.<p>"Norway’s Vehicle Fleet Transitions To Electric — How Long Will It Take?"<p><a href="https://cleantechnica.com/2022/08/25/norways-vehicle-fleet-transitions-to-electric-how-long-will-it-take/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://cleantechnica.com/2022/08/25/norways-vehicle-fleet-t...</a><p>Short version, gasoline use has dipped, and it's about to crash.
Isn't the first step Reduce?<p>Any reduction in petroleum usage is good, removal of urban emissions is better.<p>Diesel trucks operate mostly on the motorway and they can get a good speed there, creating more efficiency. (unlike American big rigs, Euro-trucks are smaller and more efficient, from what I recall.)<p>Cars meanwhile drive locally, pollute where you breathe, and with stat/stop traffic are not efficient consumers of fuel.
No one is quitting oil this decade. All this navel gazing over how hard or easy it would be to do and whether we should use bikes or hydrogen or the power of dreams is just a weird pretense. It honestly makes me think more and more about Don't Look Up