Norway on track to be first to go all-electric
Norway on track to be first to go all-electric
Nine in 10 new cars in the country are now battery-powered, and it aims to hit 100% later this year.
Summary
Norway leads the world in electric vehicle (EV) adoption, with EVs making up nearly 90% of new car sales in 2024 and over 30% of all cars on its roads.
This shift, driven by decades of policies like tax exemptions for EVs, higher taxes on fossil fuel cars, and perks like free parking, has put Norway on track to phase out new fossil fuel car sales by 2025.
The country's wealth, renewable hydroelectric power, and extensive charging network have enabled its EV revolution, serving as a model for other nations.
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But I was told by Susan on Facebook that EVs can't work in a cold place!
I think Susan meant in cold rural place where it's hundreds of kilometers to a larger city and days trip to EV maintenance.
Local boy can dismantle and assemble her current Toyota Hilux if necessary.
From a mechanical standpoint, this is a silly argument. I've worked on cars for approx. 15 years as a hobby/side hustle, owned a mobile mechanic business for 2.5 years, and worked at a auto shop for a time as well. Trust me, EV's are far more simple, hardware-wise. You could argue they're not simple, software-wise, for the average consumer to work on themselves, but that would ignore the relative complexity of modern CANbus systems in new cars, with dozens of subsystems feeding multiple computers, all of which can malfunction and cause problems for the whole system. Such as when an led tail-light breaks and that bricks the whole car, leaving the owner potentially stranded.
ICE vehicles have to rely on and maintain multiple pressurized systems (with dozens of specialized seals), vacuum, dozens (sometimes hundreds) of sensors, relays, and valves, not to mention rapid heat differentials, all of the moving parts with bearings and added weights to counteract various forces...
I love the idea of only having to work on suspension/steering/brakes from time to time. Have a motor issue? Unplug it, undo a few bolts, and put a new one in over a single beer. Sounds awesome to me..
I think you missed the point.
You could argue they're not simple, software-wise, for the average consumer to work on themselves, but that would ignore the relative complexity of modern CANbus systems in new cars, with dozens of subsystems feeding multiple computers, all of which can malfunction and cause problems for the whole system. Such as when an led tail-light breaks and that bricks the whole car, leaving the owner potentially stranded.
You think people living in middle of nowhere wants a car like this, with nearest approved maintenance with all the correct databus plugins nowhere in sight.
Otherwise agreeing what you posted, and yes many new ICEs have equally complex software and databus systems to control the maintenance infrastructure and keep the money flowing to the manufacturer.
I think you're right, I side-stepped the point a bit. I was pointing out the similar complexity of modern ICE cars with the relative simplicity of EV hardware. EV's are so much more simple, down to a component level. An electric motor is a single spinning shaft with a couple bearings involved.
I'm really only speaking on current technology that consumers have access to. Planned obsolescence and ransom-ware software that locks everyone out of doing repairs, except for a certified dealer technician, are issues that are affecting most vehicles being made these days. So, to criticize new technologies over software issues like that just seems ignorant, or disingenuous to me. Further than that, IMHO, most of the legitimate issues with EV's come down to systemic or political issues that essentially boil down to some human minds not keeping pace with overall human imagination and advancement, and unchecked industry leaders/monopolies throwing down constant road blocks to protect their current profit schemes.
To your point, with the way things are now, generally speaking, someone in a very rural area is probably better off with a 90's era 2.4L Toyota T100. At least until the infrastructure and auto industry standards catch up.
Thanks for writing this. I had zero idea what EVs mean for a mechanic.
Good thing an electric motor requires less maintenance than an ICE. For the rest it’s the same as every car. Only the tires wear down faster, the brakes might rust when you always one-pedal drive and for certain EVs you need to flush and recharge the coolant once in a while.
A guy in the US drives about 40 miles on average a day and there's evs that can do 10x that now
Yeah. It's the range that's killer. EVs can run in cold all day long. But running heavy duty heating to keep the cabin comfortable and the windows clear of ice, plus heating the battery pack to maintain performance, can cut the already overstated manufacturer range down by 30-40% or more. Which can bring a marginally OK travel range in a lot of areas down to "shit this isn't enough".
Nowhere near as much of a problem if you keep it plugged in and warm up prior to leaving, which most EVs have a timer feature to do automatically. Gasoline powered vehicles also lose significant range in the cold, it’s just not as noticeable to some because ICE are already extremely inefficient.
Unfortunately this doesn’t help people who can’t charge at home, but that’s an infrastructure/housing issue not an EV issue.
Who can't charge at home? Who is getting an EV before electricity in their house?
Apartments are seriously lagging on getting EV stations installed. Then there's the issue of running power from the tenants meter to a dedicated parking spot (which would require cutting up sidewalks and the like). Even on a condo it can be a mess with the HOA.
There are plenty of landlords that won't allow a tenant to install an EV outlet even on a SFU.
Yes, sorry, I hadn't thought of apartments. In my defense where I live, having an apartment and having a car rarely overlap, people use public transport.
You don't need to install an EV outlet to charge at home. EV outlets are convenient but they are just dumb cables. All the interesting technology for charging is in the car itself. You can get plug-in-adapters for charging a car that go into an ordinary socket and they work just as well as the wall mounted direct type.
All you really need is a 50a level 2 charger that'll plug into any 14-50r receptacle and an available plug. You can then use RV style step down plugs and set the charge current accordingly in your app/console.
Let's rethink this. The owners could have a dedicated electric line for charging. Then have power stations along the parking spots. People would then use their credit/debit cards to pay for the electricity just like we do at gas pumps.
And then you get landlords/complex owners gouging to charge your car.
They already gouge to park it, I’d like an outlet pls.
Myself, and plenty others. It’s completely doable, just less convenient.
Not everyone has a garage or available outlet at home. That is an infrastructure/housing issue, not an EV issue. You wouldn’t blame a lack of convenient gas stations nearby as an issue with an ICE car, would you?
Am I missing something? While dedicated, wall-mount-style chargers are convenient, car "chargers" are literally just a power adapter. The ones that plug into a socket (outlet?) are functionally the same. They just supply electricity, all the interestingly technology is in the car itself.
Someone mentioned renting apartments which is fair enough, I live in a country where of you're in an apartment you use public transport so it didn't factor.
There are multiple kinds, but that’s not the important part here.
Much of the world does not have the infrastructure to allow for most people to charge their car at home at all is what I meant to say, apartments are a great example. Unfortunately public transit in my area is also not great, so a car is required to do much of anything.
If you can’t go anywhere without a car and you can’t charge your car at home, it becomes difficult to justify an EV. But that’s not the EV’s fault, that’s the fault of our infrastructure failing to keep up.
Ideally public transit would be the solution, but some places aren’t likely to see improvements to that for a while.
You wouldn’t blame a lack of convenient gas stations nearby as an issue with an ICE car, would you?
We do it with hydrogen cars... I don't see the difference here.
The difference is that ICE cars are the gold(bronze? It's not a high bar... just the one we're used to) standard to currently beat. When Electric is just as convenient or better than ICE, I'm willing to bet that people will start to argue the other way. We already see it with people who can get away with Electric at home. It's all they can go on about with how convenient that is... So much so that they seem to forget that it's only convenient for them because they're lucky enough to meet the requirements to make it convenient.
Hydrogen cars also suffer from an infrastructure issue, yes….among others, mainly just not being competitive with EVs at all because they’re not really any better at anything except for fueling time.
As an EV owner without the convenience of charging at home, I don’t blame the vehicle. There are plenty of other conveniences that come with one to offset the inconvenience of charging elsewhere.
I’m not sure what point you’re making here apart from “this is the world we live in”, which was never really in doubt.
The point is exactly that... “this is the world we live in”... And as that world evolves, or as technologies and consumer desires changes, what people will complain about will change as well.
If there were no gas stations around... I would blame ICE cars for needing gas and thus would choose something else that fits my needs better. The point is that infrastructure exists and is part of the package of buying the vehicle. It's fair game for discussion, and thus blame.
I think we’re just saying the same thing in different ways here.
We can blame lack of EV adoption (in part) on infrastructure reasons, but that itself is no reflection of the vehicle.
OTOH, there are reasons hydrogen vehicles never took off beyond simply infrastructure, so I’m not sure why this example was given.
If there were no gas stations around…. I would blame ICE cars for needing gas
Not the lacking infrastructure?
I agree infrastructure is part of the package of buying the vehicle I’m just not sure why you would blame one for the inconvenience of the other. Why not blame infrastructure for infrastructure problems, and vehicles for vehicle problems?
Not the lacking infrastructure?
It's not the infrastructure's fault I bought the car that I can't feed with whatever energy source it uses.
If I buy a car knowing that the infrastructure is lacking then the car causes me problems doesn't it? Or lets say infrastructure disappears because of demand (or lack thereof), the car becomes useless, no? These things are linked.
If you buy a vehicle knowing you don’t have the means to fuel it, it’s not the vehicle that’s the problem lol.
I make public charging work, and knew what I was getting into prior to buying it.
If you want to explore the hypothetical of every home in the country suddenly being without power, I would still consider that a failure of our infrastructure/housing more than the vehicle itself. In that situation the vehicle is fine, you just can’t fuel it. You would also have other issues to worry about.
Would you blame your refrigerator for no longer being able to keep your food cool in a power outage as readily as you would your EV for not charging, or would you blame the grid’s inability to deliver reliable power to your home?
With the way things are going in Norway, i bet EV cars will be blamed for that one as well, when the petrol stations start to disappear...
BIG EV IS TAKING ALL OUR GAS!!!!111
As an EV owner, you're not wrong about heating the cabin taking like 30% of the range, but the battery heater is a drop in the bucket by comparison.
I know it's not much vs the cabin, but every watt matters.
Theres also the the problem that EVs are quite low profile. Shit happens if you hit an ice bolder on the road and your battery casing gets dented.
Hey it’s Karen, let’s not drag Susan in to this.
