Norway: 37% of new vehicles sold in January were electric

Expect the numbers to drop right back down again in a few years. A major reason for people owning a EV, a law that was introduced back when Thinks were the big deal EV to have (yeah, right) that allowed EVs to use the bus lanes and not pay a toll, have been repealed.<p>Note that it was only when Tesla made the EV comparable to a sportscar that it picked up in Norway. And that was because now the rich of the nation could bypass the rush hour traffic and not pay road tolls, while still own something that looked and drove like the neighbors gas guzzler.<p>Over time that thinking trickled down to the wider population along with more practical and cheaper EV designs.<p>But now the big incentive is gone, and thus i suspect the trend will reverse soon enough.

The headline and article are a bit misleading, the share of completely electric cars (no internal combustion engine) is actually dropping compared to last year as there are some newly introduced tax-reductions and benefits for hybrid plug-in vehicles as well. Many of the top-selling cars on the list that is counted as electric are actually cars with a small battery and electric motor along with a traditional ICE. [0] The topsellers of &quot;electric&quot; cars are actually big cars like the VW Passat GTE and Volvo XC90, both of which will probably produce more emissions than smaller ICE-only vehicles through their lifetime (unless the owner is very concious about charging the battery all the time.) [0] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ev-sales.blogspot.no&#x2F;2017&#x2F;02&#x2F;norway-january-2017.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ev-sales.blogspot.no&#x2F;2017&#x2F;02&#x2F;norway-january-2017.html</a>

Having owned a Nissan LEAF for the last 2.5 years has been really great. Maintenance is almost nothing, the battery has held up fantastic and the car is a real pleasure to drive. Never having to stop for gas or get oil changes sounds like not a big deal but it is really nice. Every morning the LEAF has a full charge.<p>I think the Bolt and other 200+ mile range vehicles that are fairly affordable will help get more people into EVs. The other thing I think we need in the US is an affordable EV crossover. There&#x27;s rumors of Nissan doing an EV Rogue. If they put a 60KWh battery in it, I think it would sell like gangbusters.<p>Obviously the last hurdle, and a serious one for many people, is that owning an EV without owning a house is really impractical in most places in the US. We need charging stations at apartment complexes, but that&#x27;s one of those things that is unlikely to happen until EV ownership is widespread enough to make it a feature potential renters will care about.

Norway is an example of a &quot;great rotation&quot; from gasoline cars into diesel and electrical vehicles. What&#x27;s also interesting is that it is happening quickly:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;apps.axibase.com&#x2F;chartlab&#x2F;bbc5e671" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;apps.axibase.com&#x2F;chartlab&#x2F;bbc5e671</a><p>Keep in mind, that Norway has abundant hydropower capacity. The wholesale settlement price for electricity out of Norway has fallen from 50 to 30 eurocents over the last 10 years for a variety of reasons such as Denmark&#x27;s successful foray into offshore wind energy production.<p>As for Tesla, it made it to top-10 by new registrations in 2015:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;apps.axibase.com&#x2F;chartlab&#x2F;bbc5e671&#x2F;3&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;apps.axibase.com&#x2F;chartlab&#x2F;bbc5e671&#x2F;3&#x2F;</a><p>The annual statistics for 2016 will be released at the end of March, so it would be interesting to see the progress the country has made last year.

I wonder how many electric cars Norway would have bought if it didn&#x27;t made that much money selling oil...

Seems like much of the move to electric vehicles in Norway has been driven by tax incentives (vehicle purchase and fuel). Is the strategy to keep ramping up these incentives until the vast majority of cars are electric in 2025 then simply outlaw new ICE sales?

Norway keeps working so hard at building an eco-friendly image.<p>In reality the oil they pump up from their territory makes them one of the world&#x27;s most environmentally unfriendly countries (both in absolute numbers and particularly per capita).

Can someone provide data showing how electric cars reduce emissions overall? Having something like this ready would help when discussing with people who are not sure of the benefits of EVs (&quot;it still uses energy right?&quot;).

And selling 1.6b barrels of oil per day. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_countries_by_oil_exports" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_countries_by_oil_expor...</a>

How many new power plants are planned? Or do many houses have their own photovoltaic.<p>Optimally, one has a house with 10+KW&#x2F;H photovoltaic panels at home, an battery storage and an electric car. The battery storage is needed, as one is usually away at work when the sun is shining. And if you deliver the eletricity to the grid provider you get little money, so it would make sense to use the power yourself or store it to power up your car for next day. And of course your employer would need parking lots to power up electric cars.<p>(what would be not optimal to have huge coal&#x2F;atomic power plants in the neighbourhood that produce the electricity for your car - then a petrol powered car would make more sense)<p>And if you own an electric car, do you own the battery pack too? Or do you have lease the power pack for something like 100$ per months plus all the costs electricity to recharge? - I would like to buy an electric car, and want to own the battery myself.