Bonus taxes ("accijns", also raised on alcohol and tobacco) makes up 12.2 billion of the country's income (https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/prinsjesdag/inkomst... at least a billion is spent on CO2 and nitrogen reduction, and reducing the dependency on natural gas in favor of electricity (that can be produced in a renewable fashion).

Although, it probably would be better to move more of the tax burden to car use in cities, and away from fuel. Driving a car in the countryside is much less damaging than in a city centre.

We pay a lot of taxes.

EU has very strict policies about emissions.

The most immediate and obvious cost is not being able to drive those cars that do not respect the limits.

Also: in many EU countries fuel is heavily taxed

In Italy 75% of the price to the pump is taxes.

Definitely not free.

Wishful thinking. You can still drive the most extreme of polluting vehicles as long as they're old enough, or as long as their manufacturer cheated at emission tests (many recalls are still pending for years).

old enough as in 30 years old at least

there are very few of them

and usually they can't be trusted to commute everyday

> as their manufacturer cheated at emission tests

that's universally true.

there was an article yesterday about Tesla Y built with cheap material and rooftop flying away while driving

I guess it can be considered dangerous too

So unless some of that tax is intended to be a carbon tax and works to incentive cleaner alternatives, then this is a pretty weak argument.

Also, the producers aren't paying he cost, end users are[1] and without much in the way of alternatives.

1. always do, but you get where I'm coming from

Of course the incentive is towards cleaner alternatives, in my country is public transport (trains, trams and subway are electric here).

> Also, the producers aren't paying he cost

fiscal incentive for EV go straight to car producers pockets, I don't see the difference

taxing owners is a way to drive them to buy a different product, cheaper for the buyer and more profitable for the seller

it works both ways

In short, as much part of EU you can be without being part of it. Norway keeps the freedom on key areas like fishing rights and agriculture while essentially being part of everything else without voting rights. And in some partnerships also having voting rights due to their structure.

It's just the truth. Norway is not a member of the EU. But I agree that it is good to have a strong understanding of what exactly the relationship is between Norway and the European Union.

They're like Switzerland, which hemmeded and hawed about immigration from the EU, held a referendum deciding to block it, and then when the EU put an economic gun to their head, backed down and all EU citizens now have freedom of movement to Switzerland.

The result of the referendum would definitely violate part of the agreement and the EU just reminded Switzerland of the consequences.

If anything it could be blamed on the initiators and supporters (SVP) of the referendum to not properly inform the populace of the consequences of a successful referendum.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland%E2%80%93European_U...

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

ICE cars are not releasing CO2 for free, that's the point.

in Norway gas is heavily taxed as well

However if we can get to renewable energy (nuclear power, as solar panel manufacturing has a lot of damage as well currently) then we can truly be carbon neutral.

The best thing to say about EVs is that air quality in dense areas is better, at the cost of electricity being produced by dirty methods in (hopefully) more sparse areas.

Global warming on the other hand threatens the whole biome and stopping the release of CO2 doesn't stop global warming once tipping points are reached. You also need global agreement to meaningfully do something about it.

(You also have to keep in mind that fuel for ICEs doesn't magically appear. Extracting oil and transporting it isn't particularly good for the local environment either.)

It's a simpler problem to tackle if you have a few thousands polluting agents than billions of polluting agents everywhere.

- Norway has a population of 5 million

- because of the incentive to use electricity, the annual electricity consumption was about 26-27 MWh per inhabitant during 2004-2009 when the European union (EU15) average in 2008 was 7.4 MWh. Norway’s consumption of electricity was over three times higher per person compared to the EU 15 average in 2008

For comparison, Italy makes 41% of its power from hydro, but have to serve a population of 60 million

If Norway was truly sorry, they should liquidate all of their oil profits and use it to invest in research to make a carbon neutral future. As it stands they ruined the environment and now will profit off the backs of the rest of the world through the legacy of their fossil fuel extraction.

https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-production-by-country/

[edit] For all those who scale with population: it doesn't really matter for production. Population matters for consumption, and emissions (if they were producing 5% of US CO2, it would really look bad for Norway; but they don't - per capita the emit half than what US does per capita[1]). I guess it could matter in "benefit per capita"... if that were a thing (outside Norway maybe). I.e. how much did you benefit from US oil production, vs. how much Exxon benefited? I mean, yeah US citizens benefited from cheap gas - but that's because of middle-east production, so in reality the production elsewhere in the world should count on the US as "pollution".

[1]https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/norway?country=~NOR#p...

Having said that, because of the law of large numbers, in any ranking scaled by size, the outliers typically are the smaller entities.

All of a sudden it doesn't seem that impressive if Norway is only producing 15% the amount of the US

I know that NP is hip right now, but it really has its own problems at scale.

Global power mix: 112,000 km (69,594 miles) European power mix: 78,000 km (48,467 miles) Wind power: 50,000 km (31,068 miles)

The electrical emissions data comes from GaBi, but I can't see reference to the specific mixes they mention in the GaBi professional database, so I don't know what the exact breakdown of the mixes are.

I didn't realise the numbers were so high!

Many EVs will be carbon-better only once their second hand vehicles!

I expect you're right about the equilibrium extending beyond the first owner in many instances. Volvos are renowned for their longevity (100,000mi is not uncommon) so will be interesting to see how Polestars fair with battery degradation. It would be interesting if Polestar go the way of Apple and try to recapture cars at end-of-life to recycle them and reduce subsequent generation car production emissions.

If you’re comparing CO2 emissions, you have to consider the full lifecycle.

a) Due to the factory power source which will probably (hopefully) be renewable soon

b) Due to some processing step where carbon capture should be a lot easier to perform than the direct air capture necessary to capture car emissions.

So the method of emissions needs to be considered as well.

Do you have any data to share supporting the claim?

But it would be interesting to read a proper documentation of it.

But money is not the only reason it has worked. Norway is generating 95% of their electricity using hydro. A KW/h is cheaper in Norway than it is in France (which is notoriously cheap due to nuclear). People want to have an electric car, because it makes sense for them. Once the economy is converted, they will reduce the incentives, and they will be in a very good place.

Now we can say that that is also an unfair advantage (a geographic one). But they did build all those plants. Norway did play the long game.

We can all continue to say that there are no solutions to climate change, or we can take a leaf from their book and start playing the long game. The best moment to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best moment is today.

Wikipedia page on Norwegian Electricity sector: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Norway

Eurostat statistics on electricity prices in Europe: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

Basically, EVs has to pay an insurance equivalent to what motorcycles pay. Which per now is 2135 NOK or USD 230.

Governments writeup: https://www.regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/pa-veg-mot-ei-framtid-...

VAT is the largest item here, but others are potentially worth quite a bit too.

Taxes:

No purchase/import taxes (1990-) - would be 25% VAT, plus 2,400 NOK (260 USD) scrap duty tax, greenhouse gas tax for a/c of around 730 NOK (80 USD)

No annual road tax (1996-) - would be approximately 2960 NOK (350 USD)

50% reduced company car tax (2000-2018), 40% (2018-) - company cars are provided as a benefit taxed at around 30% of list price otherwise, however there are reductions of 25% for all vehicles over three years or cars used for work driving of 40,000km per year

Exemption from 25% VAT on purchase (2001-)

Exemption from 25% VAT on leasing (2015)

Tolls and Fares:

No charges on toll roads or ferries (1997-2017) - typical ferry fare for a fjord is around 100 NOK (11 USD), tolls are around 20 NOK (2 USD), so this could be a significant benefit if living near a toll road or ferry crossing

Maximum 50% of the total amount on ferry fares for electric vehicles (2018-)

Maximum 50% of the total amount on toll roads (2019)

Parking:

Free municipal parking (1999-2017)

Parking fee for EVs was introduced locally with an upper limit of a maximum 50% of the full price (2018-)

Bus lanes:

Access to bus lanes (2005-)

New rules allow local authorities to limit the access to only include EVs that carry one or more passengers (2016)

Vans:

Fiscal compensation for the scrapping of fossil vans when converting to a zero-emission van (2018)

Allowing holders of driver licence class B to drive electric vans class C1 (light lorries) up to 4250 kg (2019)

I wish my government were doing the same here

"Allowing holders of driver licence class B to drive electric vans class C1 (light lorries) up to 4250 kg (2019)"

Is this a good idea? Is this save? There are C class driver licenses for a good reason, those heavy cars just behave differently on the road, there are different regulations for them. Sounds strange.

If you want electric delivery vans, yes.

Delivery companies that own their own vans and pay their employees hourly are in price competition with 'gig economy' delivery companies where the driver brings their own vehicle and gets paid per-parcel - so traditional companies are limited in their ability to absorb or pass on higher costs.

A diesel class B van with a 3.5 tonne weight limit, set up as a delivery van, can carry perhaps 1 tonne of cargo. In inner-city areas, where the density of deliveries is high, vans having a shorter range isn't a problem - but the vans will leave the depot at the absolute maximum weight capacity.

If electric vans have 20% less cargo capacity due to the weight of the batteries? That's a profitable business turned into an unprofitable one.

While there are some delivery companies (UPS for example) that use a lot of class C1 vans, and hire employees with the special licenses required, the supply of people with C1 licenses is much lower than the supply of people with B (i.e. car driver) licenses and the hourly wages are higher accordingly.

Lots of empty mountains where it rains a lot and water can be stored in dams for power production.

However the wiring for these cannot handle what an EV car chargers requires, so they're useless for charging a car. For EVs typically new charging points are installed and this can be costly. It depends upon if the residents' association agrees to pay for them to be installed.

Really, you can't walk 1 mile once a week to park your car at a charger?