11
votes
Nine in ten new cars sold in Norway are electric or hybrid, compared to less than half of those sold in the EU. What's Norway's secret?
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- Title
- How did Norway become the world leader in electric car use?
- Published
- May 31 2023
- Word count
- 1215 words
We have good cover for chargers. Norway is a small country. In other countries you can drive for many hours without seeing a single gas station. Here they are everywhere, many with chargers. I'm not fully updated on how it is up north in Finnmark, but in western and eastern Norway there are plenty. We also cut some of the taxes on electric vehicles, but I think they are comming back since so many have electric cars now.
Are the chargers universal? I feel like on barrier to adoption in the US is that there are many different charger types so coverage isnt actually as good as it seems.
There isn't really that many types. There is the Standard Level 2 Port J1772 (All EVs in Canada and USA can charge using this), Level 3 SAE Combo CCS (which is a J1772 with extra contacts so you can plug a J1772 in it without an adapter), the Tesla and the CHAdeMO (which is being phased out). You can get adapters for each and the only two types that aren't compatible and CHAdeMo and SAE Combo CCS.
The only problem with charging your non-tesla at a tesla station is that the station cables are a length that assumes the port is located where all tesla's have it.
I see, I took a cursory search into charging stations when I was considering renting one as Hertz had a deal going on for EV rentals, but it didnt seem feasible for me.
As far as I know everyone in Europe has converged to CCS2. Some legacy CHAdeMO charger exists, but they're becoming a rare breed indeed.
If I'm not mistaken, the US will be converging to the Tesla NACS port in the future so hopefully that improves things.
Wealth is certainly a contributing factor. Norway is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, built on smart investments of their national resources. A lot of which has come directly from oil and gas industry.
It is moderately easier to be an early adopter of expensive technologies when you can afford it. I think the political will exists in most countries. And a lot of the opposition is based on the expense of such change. It's happening but has to happen more slowly.
It's really not that complicated
high taxes on ICE cars
Low taxes on EVs
Short average trip distance
Turns out incentives work