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…
Thanks for writing this. I had zero idea what EVs mean for a mechanic.
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.
A guy in the US drives about 40 miles on average a day and there’s evs that can do 10x that now
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.
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”.
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Who can’t charge at home? Who is getting an EV before electricity in their house?
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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.
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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.
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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.
Amazing how easily it’s happened with barely any effort. We could have fixed climate change 50 years ago but the fossil fuel industry wanted their money so now the earth is fucked
To be absolutely clear, Norway has achieved this by selling oil to other countries. This wasn’t a heroic sacrifice or noble vanguard effort.
You mean all that oil money that was spent on lying to the public and bribing politicians could have been spent on solving the problem this whole time?
The ability to pay for subsidies has no relation to the source of the funds. What matters is GDP, overall national wealth. And Norway is only slightly ahead of the US. Considering the US’s far superior manufacturing capability, if Norway could go all electric, than the US certainly could have by now. Norway’s had to import almost all its electric cars; the US can make its own cars.
Why are you telling me about America?
Because the whole internet is America, at least that’s what Americans think.
I’m kidding, he/she/they probably wanted to provide an example of a country with a similar GDP that is in the exact opposite position.
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Care to point out what hate and misinformation is relevant to this? If other countries didn’t buy their oil, they could not have achieved this. Norway is a small petrostate with a side gig in poaching EU fish. No amount of Irish salmon would have covered the cost of this. If you don’t understand that a country smaller by population than the city of Barcelona exporting the fourth largest amount of natural gas in the world taints this achievement to some degree, you are entitled to your opinion, but it’s not misinformation.
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Absolutely it is better than not subsidising EV cars. No doubt. My issue is with the original comment painting this as something “barely any effort” implying that any country could do this. This was a unique situation and I’m glad that Norwegians chose to make themselves feel better about being an educated western petrostate bane on the planet by buying themselves EVs instead of feeding it to a king, ceo, sultan or emir.
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Not every country has ungodly reserves of fossil fuels providing essentially free money. “Richer” is a bit silly - by raw GDP per capita, Norway has been one of if not the richest country in the world since the establishment of State Oil. Combined with not being a dirt poor monarchy ready to sell its resource extraction rights to Britain/America when the resources were found, Norway is nearly unique.
“The country’s wealth, renewable hydroelectric power, and extensive charging network have enabled its EV revolution”
These are not barely any effort. These are huge factors.
Congrats Norway.
First of all: way to go Norway! 🥳
Additionally, bravo to the BBC for selecting a pic of one of the most Norwegian-looking people in existence for the article pic 😂
I don’t know how to tell you, but do you know how much waste is generated after lithium mining? Also, look at where lithium is mined, in poor countries where no one cares about the environment.
I mean, this is good, but isn’t it the case that they basically pay for this by selling Oil and Gas? That’s not replicable for most nations, and is kinda… like, damaging. I’m glad they did it, but unless their next goal is like, paying India to phase out their fossil fuel industry it kinda feels like pulling the ladder up in a way to me.
It’s not free parking anymore for a while now
Yeah, but having that temporarily has helped people transition, is the point.
Dude!!? All 2000 cars???
Educate yourself it’s 1999 cars Gunderson passed last night in a car crash
But what about batteries which also poising environment after extraction.
Hog foot then!
