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Re:Electric Cars Hit Record in Norway by seanmcdirmid on Wednesday April 03, 2019 @04:25PM (#19566985)
Not really. Norway gets 80-90% of its electricity from hydro. EVs are a great way of leveraging that natural resource, hence the difference in taxation.
Re:Electric Cars Hit Record in Norway by tyfon on Wednesday April 03, 2019 @04:36PM (#19567052)
98% [1]

For all practical purposes the electricity here is 100% clean except for emissions occurring during construction. Huge concrete dams add quite a bit of CO2 to the atmosphere when curing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Norway

Re:Electric Cars Hit Record in Norway by seanmcdirmid on Wednesday April 03, 2019 @05:08PM (#19567269)
Ah, thanks for the correction, I knew it was really up there, just not that high.
Re:Electric Cars Hit Record in Norway by vinni2 on Wednesday April 03, 2019 @04:48PM (#19567148)
But still they are able to subsidize EVs because they heavily tax the oil and make a ton of money exporting oil. If Norway wasn’t oil rich there was no way these subsidies would be economically feasible.
Re:Electric Cars Hit Record in Norway by marvin on Wednesday April 03, 2019 @05:04PM (#19567254)
I don't think this has much to do with the oil wealth. These are only subsidies in the sense that there is an absence of a tax that would otherwise roughly double the cost of the car. Almost no Norwegians would normally buy a car with an $80,000 (US) base price; most Tesla buyers would normally go for something less than half of that price. So the lost tax revenues aren't proportional to the price of the car.

Norway's oil wealth mostly goes towards a massive public sector and a very comprehensive social safety net, and it doesn't enter the economy directly -- only in the shape of a 3% dividend from previously invested oil tax money.

Re:Electric Cars Hit Record in Norway by vinni2 on Thursday April 04, 2019 @05:05AM (#19570377)
> So the lost tax revenues aren't proportional to the price of the car.

So what? It’s still lost revenue for the government. 60% of the car sales won’t give any taxes. And they still have to maintain roads and infrastructure for all those cars.

They are able to afford because the oil industry creates lots of businesses hotels and jobs and they pay taxes on their income. Which is a huge part of Norwegian economy. Imagine the economy of Norway without oil it would not have been so rich. Probably the closest example is Denmark they already abandoned the tax benefits for EVs. Because it’s a huge part of tax revenue the government can’t simply give up.

Re:Electric Cars Hit Record in Norway by seanmcdirmid on Wednesday April 03, 2019 @05:08PM (#19567276)
They aren’t subsidizing EVs, they are just anti-subsidizing ICEs, which they were doing anyways before EVs were a thing.