this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
244 points (98.8% liked)

World News

39575 readers
2231 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] zeezee@slrpnk.net 5 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

So now that Norway has 99% renewables and will soon reach 99% electric vehicles, they'll stop drilling oil in the North Sea, right?

They're best positioned for the Contraction and Convergence strategy so continuing to pump and sell oil is antithetical to their sustainability stance.

Unless they're creating a walled garden while letting everyone else around them burn - tho let's hope that's not the case as once the AMOC collapses and brings the likes of 160km/h bomb cyclones to it's territories it wouldn't matter how green they've been.

[–] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago

That means Norway will sell the fossil fuel they don't use to somewhere else.

[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

When it comes to globally warming they really can't lose.

[–] macaroni1556@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 hour ago

Not true, Norway is remarkably warm compared to similar latitudes (i.e. Canada) due to the Gulf Stream and the resulting coastal current. If that collapses the sea will freeze and Norway will no longer be the mild climate it is now.

[–] xc2215x@lemmy.world 12 points 7 hours ago

Congrats Norway.

[–] splonglo@lemmy.world 31 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

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

[–] TheOctonaut@mander.xyz 23 points 11 hours ago (3 children)

To be absolutely clear, Norway has achieved this by selling oil to other countries. This wasn't a heroic sacrifice or noble vanguard effort.

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 6 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] TheOctonaut@mander.xyz 1 points 1 hour ago

Why are you telling me about America?

[–] splonglo@lemmy.world 15 points 10 hours ago

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?

[–] karl_chungus@lemm.ee 7 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

That does nothing to inhibit this achievement.

Maybe if the rest of us got our collective thumbs out of our asses and started curbing our addiction to fossil fuels they wouldn’t have to sell oil to other countries.

Your comment history seems to be fueled by a lot of hate and misinformation.

[–] TheOctonaut@mander.xyz 1 points 46 minutes ago (1 children)

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.

[–] karl_chungus@lemm.ee 1 points 39 minutes ago

I’m not trying to give them a free pass at selling oil or anything, but this is a much better use of the profits compared to other countries.

I’d rather see a country exporting fossil fuels doing something with that money to not use fossil fuels than give it to Billionaires or something.

If more countries followed their example, there wouldn’t be much demand left for that oil.

[–] HoMaster@lemm.ee 2 points 10 hours ago

“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.

[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 45 points 15 hours ago (3 children)

But I was told by Susan on Facebook that EVs can't work in a cold place!

[–] random_character_a@lemmy.world 13 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] timmy_dean_sausage@lemmy.world 12 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

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..

[–] triptrapper@lemmy.world 5 points 5 hours ago

Thanks for writing this. I had zero idea what EVs mean for a mechanic.

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 6 points 10 hours ago

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.

[–] splonglo@lemmy.world 11 points 14 hours ago

A guy in the US drives about 40 miles on average a day and there's evs that can do 10x that now

[–] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

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".

[–] karl_chungus@lemm.ee 7 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (23 children)

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.

load more comments (23 replies)
[–] entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] oce@jlai.lu 17 points 15 hours ago (7 children)

Norwegians aren't more environmentally-minded than people elsewhere, she reckons. "I don't think a green mindset has much to do with it. It has to do with strong policies, and people gradually understanding that driving an electric car is possible."

Yet Norway is also a very wealthy nation, which thanks to its huge oil and gas exports, has a sovereign wealth fund worth more than $1.7tn (£1.3tn). This means it can more easily afford big infrastructure-build projects, and absorb the loss of tax revenue from the sale of petrol and diesel cars and their fuel.

The country also has an abundance of renewable hydro electricity, which accounts for 88% of its production capacity.

[–] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 9 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Aren't US taxes on gas cars lower than Norwegian taxes on electric cars? US gasoline is insanely cheap.

Norwegian evs have to pay 25% sales tax over $50k and they're also taxed based on weight.

https://elbil.no/english/norwegian-ev-policy/

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›