1) Yeah, they are a small resource rich country, not practical for the rest of us.
America, Canada, UK, Saudi Arabia and Australia were resource rich and still are ( America is the largest producer of oil )
and had the opportunity to do what Norway did but chose not to do it.
UK had a huge surplus from north sea oil during the 1990s which is allowed private companies to profit off. Same with America, Australia and Canada.
It is really remarkable how Norway was able to and still is able to think so far ahead then the rest of us.
All of the countries mentioned have royalty regimes which companies have to pay to extract natural resources. Oil extraction in Texas has a 25% royalty rate [2]. This is typically based off of the retail price, not some interim price too.
Governments are very careful to set royalty rates appropriately. Extraction companies compare total costs, so countries with low labour and shipping costs can have higher royalties than countries with high costs. [3] I've seen a report out of New Zealand showing just how mercenary this is, comparing the cost-to-market from several countries complete with royalty rate comparisons.
The difference is in what the countries do with the royalties. For example, Alberta does have a sovereign wealth fund, but it also doesn't collect sales tax. Saudi Arabia has a huge sovereign fund - just not quite as big as Norway's. Saudi Arabia also has no personal income taxes.
Norway's genius is in sending the royalties through the fund, and then only allowing them to spend at most 4% of the total [1] - the estimated average annual return.
Norway is culturally optimized for safe equilibrium. America is culturally optimized for risky advancement. It's pretty starkly different and makes direct single-variable comparisons into shallow exercises in meaninglessness
How so? What stops any state in the US from doing similar things? Genuine question. California for example routinely establishes new and stricter (compared to other US states) environmental rules governing emissions and whatnot. Legalizing pot is similarly fairly out of the mainstream and it is being done independently by several states.
> Legalizing pot is similarly fairly out of the mainstream and it is being done independently by several states.
And for a while those states were subject to ongoing raids from the federal government. The Obama administration has held off, but the legal framework that justifies said raids is very much in place. If opinions blow back the other way they could resume any time.
When you're not sovereign, then your sovereign can tell you what you can and can't do. If you're mostly on their side, it's not a problem, but there's no guarantee it will stay that way forever.
Say a conservative supreme court comes to power and says, "Yeah, pot is totally banned and states can't opt out of it." End of discussion.
The Clean Air Act allows the federal government to give CA the ability to set alternative standards for car emission controls, but it isn't likely it allows CA to ban all fueled vehicles.
...aaaand the federal government (via congress, the executive, or the courts) could find some way to intervene and challenge that and hold it up indefinitely.
California already has stricter emissions standards than most states. You can't purchase a car in Oklahoma and register it in California without making modification to the emissions system.
banning gas stations isn't a ban on new gas vehicles, it's a ban on all gas vehicles. very different, and the people will never vote for it until we are in a very different place than we are today.
I'm talking about the former, the latter i guess is at least somewhat correlated with differing opinions too. Reaaly its the vast difference in size that matters -- USA has SO many differing constituencies with differing needs and wants and opinions. Norway is a municipal government by comparison.
I agree: I believe if you look at average incomes, rapid transit, and geography within a given state or city, you would definitely see different needs.
The average income in San Francisco, which has very good rapid transit solutions is $83k. The average income in Lancaster, Ca (a city at the edge of the Mojave) has an average household income of $51k. Busses are its rapid transit du jour. People need cars there, cheap cars, and they drive far each day.
Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico, could the cities therein afford an electric car?
I don't mean to offend, but is this a serious question?
Ideological diversity can be measured by simply conducting public opinion polls on a range of public policy issues (social, economic, foreign, domestic, etc etc). This is a pretty well established science. Add in the distribution of said opinions -- a lot of different opinions in about the same mix everywhere is much different from large concentrated enclaves in different geographic regions (ie the Big Sort[1]).
As for different needs, before we even get into ideology simple geography dictates a lot already. California has a lot of forest fires, Louisiana and Texas have a lot of floods, New England has a lot of snow.
Then you get into urban vs. rural -- America has some of the most vast expanses of rural land and many of the world's biggest cities. Urban areas have very different needs from rural ones.
THEN you get into the differing needs of the peoples themselves which is affected by a million different variables. Education levels. Income levels. Health. Languages spoken in different regions. Populations with many recent immigrants have differing legal and social needs from populations of ninth generation native-born citizens. And on and on and on.
I feel like you are pulling the discussion in an unrelated direction.
You seem to be implying that the US is the only place with diversity and that that somehow is an excuse for the US not having social security measures common in other countries.
Also what is the range of opinions in the US and how does it compare with the range of opinions in Norway?
> THEN you get into the differing needs of the peoples themselves which is affected by a million different variables. Education levels. Income levels. Health. Languages spoken in different regions. Populations with many recent immigrants have differing legal and social needs from populations of ninth generation native-born citizens. And on and on and on.
But are these requirements really that fundamentally different?
> You seem to be implying that the US is the only place with diversity and that that somehow is an excuse for the US not having social security measures common in other countries.
100% nope. Where did you get that? I'm in favor of social safety nets. This entire thread is about how easy it is to enact things like "No petrol based cars by 2025".
That's easy to do when you've got 4 million people spread over a small amount of space who come from similar backgrounds. That's harder to do with 300 million people spread over a large amount of space who come from different backgrounds. A small club is much easier to manage than a large club, I don't see what's so hard to comprehend about this.
> But are these requirements really that fundamentally different?
Yes... insofar as you get groups of people who stop thinking that it's their responsibility to cover the costs of the other group. Should people in North Dakota pay for national flood insurance of people who live in southern flood prone regions, even though it's basically guaranteed to flood there eventually? Should people in New Hampshire pay to replace homes lost in california forest fires even though it's basically guaranteed to burn in certain places? What you think is "right" on this issue doesn't matter. What matters is that people in those regions have differing opinions on the matter, and it is objectively harder to get them all to agree than a small country where people tend to have the same problems concentrated in a small place they all share.
Throw in the really controversial stuff like social issues, and the left and the right constantly trying to push their vision of it on the whole country at once, and you can see why maintaining a continent sized empire is more logistically challenging that keeping a small country together.
Religions.
Church of Norway (Evangelical Lutheran - official) 82.1%, other Christian 3.9%, Muslim 2.3%, Roman Catholic 1.8%, other 2.4%, unspecified 7.5% (2011 est.)
Not even a mix of 'white people', not even Baptists and Methodists, just Norwegian Lutherans.
It's a matter of different politics. Norway chose not to basically let private companies take all the profit from natural resources, while in the UK there's this weird system in place that has politicians ruining public orgs like infrastructure providers to afterwards claim they fixed it, once they pushed for privatization, and all they did was get it back to where it was before in quality of service. After that, it's profit-driven and the population has to fight for laws to keep up existing quality standards they pay for with taxes. There are European countries like Finland where you don't worry which school your kids go to because there are no good or bad school districts. Same for hospitals. If you have to pay taxes for public services, then it must be fair and of equal quality for everybody, or you must turn it all into a Friedman-style privatize-everything system, which may or may not work but sounds thought through and might.
The current government wants to sell off the Flytog (Airport Train). This is a state owned enterprise that even the seriously capitalist Norwegian financial magazine Kapital says is one of the best run companies in the country and should not be privatised. There have been serious suggestions that Statoil should be sold off completely. The electricity system has been privatised even though most of the energy is generated by rain that can hardly be said to be owned by anyone.
Regarding Statoil.
The government currently owns about 1/3 of it. The oil income for the state does not come from the profit of the company but the taxes they put on the companies that extract oil (which is about 80%) and the sale of licenses through Petoro.
Selling Statoil (and the other ones) have absolutely no comparison to what Thatcher did in the 80s if that is what you are insinuating.
Regarding the power, the majority of the plants are owned by Statkraft, a 100% government owned company and is most definitely not privatized.
Flytoget runs well because even though it is owned by the government, they have had a very hands off approach and let them operate without interference. The same can be said of Statoil, the only reason it has done so well is that the government has been mostly hands off. My father was in the top management before retirement and has been very clear on this. Whenever the government tried to interfere it just made problems.
In essence, as a fellow Norwegian i disagree with you on these subjects (and some of what you write is simply not true).
What's the background on Arlanda Express. I've used it and wasn't too impressed but it wasn't late or super slow. Though I wouldn't consider it an express connection from the airport to central station compared to what's possible on rails.
Basically the government put up much of the financing but gave a private company monopoly on traffic until 2040. It was sold to venture capital which because of tax planning are paying little to no tax.
Liberal economic policy states that profit is the domain of the private enterprise, infrastructure that can't turn a profit is the domain of the state. I think it's a crazy idea, but that's the gist: if there's money to be made the government should leave that to private business and trust the invisible hand to make things right.
Because the government should run the country and not small companies.
If the company is exploiting strategic resources like oil it should be taxed, not owned as far as I am concerned.
Venezuela is run by inept kleptocrats. Either the ineptitude or the kleptocracy part would be enough to keep a similar scheme from working in Venezuela.
It's not that petrol cars will be forbidden but buying a new non zero emission car in 2025 will be financially not beneficial, according to Norwegian press.
99% of the electricity in Norway comes from hydro power plants, it's a huge exporter of gas and oil and it's rich.
That makes it easier to make such a progressive decision but congrats for setting the first deadline.
The average car tax in Norway is on average 102%.
Electric cars, and Hydrogen cars have no tax.
The effect is that the Tesla model S cost roughly the same as a BMW 5-series, or Mercedes E-class.
Non-zero-emission cars aren't exactly financially beneficial already. However, long-term they would want to tax ZE cars as well (at least the standard 25% VAT), so hence the fossil cars will need to become even more expensive.
Their problem is that once more they can't think beyond the capitol. There already are all kinds of silly taxes and such to try to get people to drive less etc.
But outside of the biggest cities public transport only runs during office hours. End result is that owning and using a car i vital to continued survival.
So expect this to turn petrol cars into something of a Giffen good, if not an outright Veblen good.
You can still own a car just not a polluting one.
Personally I have a petrol car that I use to drive to and from an island called Hidra (south in Norway, about 400 km from here), but there is absolutely no need for a petrol car to do this.
The only reason I didn't buy a tesla is because the build quality of that car felt really bad when I did a test drive, however in 2025 I suspect there to be long distance electric cars made by proper car companies like mercedes or audi.
And even on that island with only ferry connection and 600 residents there is an hourly bus going the whole day to the local mainland town.
This sounds like a more balanced approach than the linked article which claims an outright ban on oil-based vehicles.
I think banning any technology is a bad idea. Imho, the problem with climate change is not the burning of oil or carbon, but the emissions from doing it.
Why can't we ban fuel-burning cars? They have a more direct impact on the environment than just climate.
I live next to a busy road and I frequently have to sweep noxious dust off my balcony. Not to mention that the sky at sunset is not naturally orange, but is tinted by the haze.
We banned CFCs because they were removing the UV filter from our atmosphere, so there is precedent, and decades later nobody misses them.
My opinion is rather than outright banning fuel-burning, we should just ban releasing their emissions to the atmosphere.
While this would ban current fuel burning technology, it might allow for someone to come up with a car engine or coal turbine that doesn't release anything.
The US is a net exporter of Oil, but like with many other products it imports as almost much as it exports.
Just be aware that the US imports 40% of it's Oil from Canada if it stops doing so it will have a major impact on Canada's economy which is a thing no one wants especially considering the current issues with the Canadian economy.
However it if wanted too it could stop importing oil all together today since it has more than enough local production, it would however increase the cost of gas and other petroproducts in the US since the US often imports considerably cheaper oil from OPEC and Canada while exporting fairly expensive US crude.
The EIA weekly status report has domestic production at 8.7mbpd, imports at 7.4mbpd and exports at 0.5mbpd, which doesn't really count as a net exporter (or I don't think so at any rate).
There are more exports of finished products than there are imports, but that's not really the same thing... refinery capacity is much more a function of money than oil production.
(as an additional point: 40% of the total US oil consumption is a lot more oil than Canada produces each day! - I expect 40% of the total imports are from Canada.)
Off topic:
Anyone watch Okkupert (occupied in English)? The French-Norwegian made drama about how a modern European country would act if war were to happen there today (like it kind of has in Ukraine...).
(Norwegian here). Great show, but it's so hilariously and transparently self-flattering to the Norwegian sense of self.
Norway boldly goes zero-emission and turns off the fossil fuel tap.
The European Union essentially hires Russia to swoop in and invade in response to turn the tap back on. When the shocked Norwegian prime minister demands to talk to the person in charge, the EU chief's head pops up and scolds them saying they had this coming. Norwegian pm demands to talk to a european head of state.... and SWEDEN pops up. SWEDEN!
Seriously, I love this show, but the American equivalent would be if France and China teamed up as an evil strikeforce to invade America because they were printing too many Bibles or something.
EDIT: also if norway turned off the tap, isn't that GOOD for Russian gas exports & thus controlling europe? But exciting fiction nonetheless :P
> Seriously, I love this show, but the American equivalent would be if France and China teamed up as an evil strikeforce to invade America because they were printing too many Bibles or something.
I'd love to watch that one, haha!
Although I have to say, being scandinavian (🇸🇪) as well, the show had me thinking better about the life in Ukraine 2014, Iraq 2003 or Afghanistan 2001. Let's all refuse violence, and end war.
Not really off-topic, since the motivation of the evil Europeans in that show was to force Norway to continue to produce oil after Norwegians decided they no longer needed it.
I really enjoyed the program, not least because I was pleasantly surprised to see something non-USA-produced in which USA was not idiotically militaristic. If Norwegians can imagine it, perhaps we can too...
Yes, great series (available on Netflix in the US). The series starts with Norway ending oil and gas production to combat global warming, which the rest of Europe and the world isn't too happy with.
I like the idea and the story, but it felt like there were dozen of characters, and everything revolved only around them. As if there was only one restaurant, one journalist, one bodyguard, one of this and one of that, and somehow they were related even before the story began. That would be perfectly fine for a sci-fi, superheroes, or where the story needs it (Sense8), but here it felt a bit strange.... Though that to be said, once you accept this little peculiarity, the show was good, and I'll watch the 2nd one too...
And to get back on topic, it definitely brought to my mind the idea how one country may quickly become isolated, because of puristic choices driven for a better life for the whole of the humanity. That by itself would keep me watching it.
I'll keep banging on this since I haven't yet heard a satisfactory answer: what are you going to do about people who park on the street or in garages they do not own?
Overnight charging systems are for homeowners. Even with a (high end, optimistic) public charge station time of 30 minutes, if there are just 4 people ahead of you in line, that's 2.5 hours out of your day.
Yes self driving may fix this eventually, but what if we are not there by 2025?
Charging posts on the streets and in public parkings is becoming more and more common. Also, electricity is 230V so charging at home is quicker than with 110.
Perhaps most importantly, since Scandinavia is at 60deg north, we use engine heaters in winter. That means that a lot of parking spaces, such as those outside multi-tenant buildings have a charger post with at least 230V/10A (because at -25C if you don't plug in at night you aren't going to get to work tomorrow).
So "plugging in your car" is something we have done for a long time, even with gasoline cars, and even if you don't live in a detached house.
Thanks, that explains why this isn't crazy for Norway.
Still interested in how we are going to make the electrical infrastructure buildout happen in the US. Commercial parking facility owners will respond to market incentives, sure, but I'm not sure that city governments and entrenched landlords will.
People will figure it out. Parking lot owners will have an incentive to provide charging stations; leave your car keys to the attendant and they'll get to it over the day.
More meta: our inability to see solutions to minor roadblocks never mean something won't happen. It's similarly amazing to me how so many commenters here don't think insurance for self-driving cars is solvable in the US - while they're already being tested in several other countries.
I live in a large housing coop. The shared parking has a few charging spots. Not using it all that much as there's charging spots at office complex parking at ¤work too.
I get it that they want to use electricity as the primary energy source for vehicles, and make all sort of fossil fuels non-viable options, but still curious - does "gas" generally means just/mostly gasoline, or applies to LPG as well? (Just that in my native tongue a word "benzin" is used for gasoline, and "gas" is always about propane/butane mixes.)
In American/Canadian parlance "gas" as discussing flammable fuel almost always means "gasoline" with exceptions like "gas main" or "gas canister" where it refers to "natural gas" (methane) or in the case of the canister, possibly propane, but usually people say "propane canister" or "propane tank" to be specific.
There's been a few stories like this, from a few different governments and many reactions suggest this is outlandish grandstanding, which puzzles me, as it seems eminently achievable from what I can gather. Simply good forward planning really (one of the comments suggest it's a target, not a "ban" as such).
This is a very bold bet. It would not work in the US, at least without some kind of revolution in public transit. There are plenty of places where not owning a car means you basically cannot have a job or a social life, and many of these are far from any existing EV stations.
It will take a long time to replicate the network of petrol stations that covers basically all US roads. Also, modern EV cars are still an order of magnitude slower to recharge than gasoline cars are to refill. It's not as easy to increase your range in an EV as it is to carry some extra petrol if you're on a long trip into the brush.
Fortunately, I don't see this even being seriously proposed in the US until long after these problems are solved.
"Every home is a slow charger. Tesla has Superchargers covering most of the first world."
I agree with your post, BUT remember that we apartment-dwellers are often forgotten. Few landlords are cool with snaking an extension cable to your car. My own apartment has no parking at all (a good thing, in my view, since parking encourages auto reliance), so I've parked on the street since I moved here. Incidentally, I sold my car earlier this afternoon, and am moving to a city where living car-free is practical.
"For residential leases signed, renewed or extended on or after July 1, 2015, landlords are required to approve a tenant’s written request to install an electric vehicle charging station at the tenant’s parking space if the tenant enters into a written agreement which includes requirements regarding the installation, use, maintenance and removal of the charging station, requires the tenant pay for all modifications, and requires the tenant to maintain a $1,000,000 general liability insurance policy."
Seems only applicable to people who intend to rent for many many years. If you move, you might need to pay to tear out your EV charging station.
A good way to address this would be to unbundle housing from parking. I'd prefer to rent a spot in a neighborhood parking garage, separate from my apartment, where I could charge a vehicle. That would be a huge shift in US building policy, though.
Oslo is aiming at zero-emission public transit by 2020. The goal is to have a mix of hydrogen busses (we already have one driving around) and EV busses. The buss stops will be charged with an automated charger which is good enough to (in worst case) bring the buss to the next stop. For longer trips, hydrogen busses are used.
Bans make for good press, but are an inefficient club to the economy. A more sensible way is to simply tax the carbon content of fuel, and raise the tax until it becomes economically worthwhile to switch most uses to alternatives.
Passing laws now about what SHOULD be in the future is a way for politicians to make it seem like they're doing something when they have no real solutions. It will be technology and industry innovators and disruptors that make this possible, but I'm sure the intelligentsia and politicians will give "forward thinking policy makers" the credit.
So instead of helping EV companies ("industry innovators and disruptors") by making their products more attractive, they should just do nothing and hope some "disruptors" come around?
1) This is not a law or a planned ban. It's a mission statement. A target. You'd be hard pressed to find a government more opposed to bans than the one we have right now. Chances are they will increase tax on emissions to reach this target, but they could also do nothing and hope the market will sort it out on its own.
2) Political bans, taxation or subsidies creates incentives. This has a habit of bringing innovators and disruptors out of the woodwork.
Possibly good news of course, but I find something is a bit out of place given this is coming from a petro-state.
They could surely have more impact on global warming etc by simply shutting down oil exports.
Not really, oil is fungible so they'd just encourage other countries to produce more. There will need to be global cooperation to keep oil in the ground, otherwise one country could defect and make a fortune.
Norway's population is less than half the size of L.A. County. (5.1-million rounded up) A very ambitious and commendable project but easily accomplished in a country with such a low population. Ford a alone makes almost 2.5-million cars a year.
"...At the end of 2014, 2.5 million passenger cars were registered in Norway. This corresponded to 491 passenger cars per 1,000 inhabitants..."
While I think it's great that they've set a date, I think it's perhaps a little premature.
Tesla has some nice options, Renault and other have to, they are all either in the high price range or to small for a family to use as the their only car. The number of alternatives on the marked seems a bit limited, and I don't think nine years is enough to remedy that.
Also what are they going to do in respect to charges, will they mandate that all manufacturers use the same plug?
There are alternatives to fossil fuels besides EV.
Also, fossil fuel based cars will not be banned. The goal only applies to new cars. In Norway, people on average keep their cars for 15 years or so, due to the high cost of owning a car (cars are taxed heavily here).
What I don't get is that this is a pretty confident bet that batteries will dramatically improve. It's not a very densely populated country. It's not like you can have a charging station every 3km. Usually law follows technology. Here it seems to anticipate it massively.
Tesla has already said that it expects batteries to cost $100/KWh by 2020. Although that may be a little optimistic, I don't think it's off by more than 2, maybe 3 years. By 2020 batteries could cost around $70/KWh, after which Li-Ion batteries at least, will probably stagnate, as it's close to raw material cost, but I expect some new type of batteries to emerge by then with potential for higher density/$.
But let's say batteries will only be $100/KWh by 2025. There was a recent report [1] saying that at $150/KWh, and considering charging and maintenance costs, which are about 1/3 that of a normal car, EVs should be competitive. So you may pay a little more for an EV upfront, but overall it should be very competitive.
I expect by 2025 we'll see 15,000 euro cars with 200+ mile ranges as well, possibly even from Tesla, but even more likely from Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, etc.
But beyond all of this, I suspect one of the reasons why Norway set up this deadline is because just like Denmark, it actually wants fewer cars on the road. So such a law is very compatible with that goal as well, although in a more indirect way. If you must have a (new) car after 2025, then it better be an EV. I think it makes a lot of sense, and I think we'll see a few more countries establish such goals by 2025, or 2030, as well.
what about trucks, heavy machinery and motorcycles? battery tech is not there for all of those. range/power/density work against batteries in those. current models all suck.
There was a time when it was laughable that the "automobile" would ever replace the horse. It broke down constantly, it had such anemic engine power that it could barely get up a hill, and the manufacturers of these vehicles were just a bunch of people in a ramshackle garage.
Large reserves of liquid petroleum were first proven viable in 1869. Even then, supplies were uncertain in the US until 1930, at which point the largest onshore find in the lower-48 states to that time and the present was discovered, the East Texas Oil Field.
Initially used for lamps (Standard Oil was founded as an illumination company), motive power wasn't practical (aside from as an alternative to coal or wood for steam engines* until Nikolaus Otto perfected the four-stroke engine in 1876. Daimler started his own company in 1880, but didn't perfect a transport-capable engine until 1885.
Within 25 years, Henry Ford was selling Tin Lizzies to anyone who could come up with $260 in cash. Numbers of automobiles and companies exploded.
And yet total patents filed not only plateaued by 1925, but fell afterward. Not all the hard problems had been solved, but many were, and there's been comparatively little qualitative improvement in automobiles in the subsequent 90 years, particularly as compared with the 50 preceding.
From first inception to mass consumer product was the blink of an eye considering all of historical innovation in transport previously. We saw 6,000 years of transport expertise obsoleted within a generation.
Trucks and heavy machinery are have a later target (2030 if I remember correctly). The 2025 goal applies to cars for private use and public transportation (Oslo, the capitol, plans to have zero-emission busses by 2020).
what are they going to do between then and now to get older vehicles out of service? are there emissions tests in Norway? Do they have a cut off date, as in the car is beyond a certain age it is not tested? Do they treat trucks and such the same?
I think its an interesting idea and it might work depending on how fast fuel cell and battery technology advances. I have never been a believer of the all battery solution as it imposes weight issues and as power levels increase charging issues arise. (damned if you do damned if you don't scenario)
There is no need for the government to set up a system to make sure older vehicles are taken out of service. You just use a combination of taxes and subsidies. You tax gas, vehicles based on their emissions or both to make old cars unaffordable, so people will take them out of service. On the other hand you make electric cars more affordable and usable through subsidies on electric cars and infrastructure for them.
If you want to push the industry further, you could also make money available for research into electric cars, batteries and related technology. You want do to the latter probably anyway because you need energy storage in order to make renewable energy work.
Modern cars are all tested for emissions by the manufacturers because of US and EU requirements. I'm sure Norway has regulation for that as well. Cars that are so old that they're untested, you could just assume as having the worst possible grade in tests. That's probably not far from the truth.
Much of that is already happening. In the EU gas is taxed quite heavily for example. Germany has environmental zones to combat air pollution that certain cars aren't allowed to enter due to their emissions. Germany has also plans on subsidizing electric car sales.
Taxing emissions makes sense because emissions are a direct externality. But when you subsidies replacements you are essentially betting on the most efficient solution, not at all certain it would be the best, you also introduce new externalities for people to profit on unfairly.
I'm guessing it would be much more effective to tax emissions, do so aggressively, and then just pass back the money directly as a public dividend. This way the market has full freedom to pick a way forward, any way.
We tax emissions. This way, a plug-in hybrid is cheaper than a diesel-car, and a pure EV is cheaper than a plug-in hybrid.
We also have some special privileges for EV cars. Like free parking on state/county-owned parking places and the option of driving in the public transport lane. Special privileges are supposed to go away in a couple of years though, due to the increase in EV owners.
We've had some problems with this after the "emission-test-cheating" scandal though.
Point being that EVs might be the wrong thing to promote. Perhaps that market would decide to get rid of commuting altogether, or improve other means of transportation like trains. Perhaps an infrastructure for EVs turns out to be worse in other areas, but now a new dependence on its existance instead of oil, again crests a situation very expensive to get out of?
That was what I meant with betting, the reason we have free markets in the first place (as opposed to central planning) is because we simply can't plan such things without them, it's to complex.
Assuming that there is a totally free market in the first place. Norway is a socialist country. All public transportation (and infrastructure) is owned by state or county. That will change somewhat soon, as private companies will be allowed to compete with the national train company. However, the state will still own the train cars and the tracks.
Public transportation is promoted way more than EV. And special EV privileges will disappear over the next couple of years. EV, hydrogen and hybrids will still be cheaper due to us taxing emissions, however.
Not to indicate that Norway doesn't have a free market, it mostly does. Exceptions are alcohol and public transit (state secured monopolies).
1) Yeah, they are a small resource rich country, not practical for the rest of us.
America, Canada, UK, Saudi Arabia and Australia were resource rich and still are ( America is the largest producer of oil ) and had the opportunity to do what Norway did but chose not to do it.
UK had a huge surplus from north sea oil during the 1990s which is allowed private companies to profit off. Same with America, Australia and Canada.
It is really remarkable how Norway was able to and still is able to think so far ahead then the rest of us.