Norway and particularly its capital Oslo has the biggest number of Tesla cars per capita in the whole world, to the point that you hardly see a “regular” car anymore in the streets.
In 2014 Tesla actually broke a record for the number of cars sold in a month for a single model, of any kind of car, not just electric cars. And there is not only Tesla but there are electric cars everywhere in the country.
In 2019, in the United States of all the new cars that were purchased about 1.5% were electric. In India, it was 0.6% or something of all the cars purchased are electric.
But in Norway, it was 55.9% and that trend is only speeding up, in March this year the share was like 75%.
So below, we’re trying to shine a light on the reasons why the electric car is such a big hit in the Land of the Vikings.
1. It’s good for the environment.
As you know electric cars are more environmentally friendly, and Norwegians care deeply about the environment.
Going zero commissions and reducing air pollution is a point of pride for this country, along with its extensive recycling network – and electric cars are the way to get there.
Especially when 99% of Norway’s electricity comes from hydropower plants which are like dams. So it’s cheap and clean energy that can be used to power these electric cars.
2. It makes your life easier.
Driving an electric car in Norway has many advantages. In Norway, if you drive an electric car, you get free parking, you get access to the HOV lane which has way less traffic, and you can go in and out without paying for the toll.
Also, Tesla cars are very efficient: a Tesla car can go from zero to 100 km per hour in just 3.1 seconds, which makes them a breeze to drive and easy to handle when you have to reach fast on the road.
Also Read: Why Tesla hasn’t entered the Indian Market yet?
Plus, because electric cars are so popular, there are charging stations everywhere, and there are like 2000 charging stations in Oslo only, so you never have to worry about running low on power. And did I mention that charging them is completely free, too?
3. It’s actually cheaper in Norway.
Have you heard the rumor that if you want to buy an electric car in Norway, the government will pay half of it?
Well, there’s some truth to that: although Teslas are expensive cars, you save a lot of money on taxes as you don’t have to pay registration fees and get tax deductions for owning electric cars, versus the steep taxation on “regular” cars, so it evens out.
It’s currently more cost-effective to buy a Tesla car in Norway than to buy a BMW, for instance.
4. The Government wants you to have electric cars.
The reason why there are so many Tesla and so many electric cars on the road comes down to government policy. The government incentivizes very, very strongly for people to buy electric cars.
Perhaps the biggest incentive of all is on the business side: companies like Tesla don’t have to pay sales tax for selling in Norway, and so all of this combined make a way, way cheaper for someone to buy Tesla here than to buy one in the United States or any other country.
And all of these subsidiaries we’re talking about are funded by a sovereign wealth fund. These electric cars are funded by a sovereign wealth fund.
It’s so huge that Norway has, it’s worth almost a trillion dollars. The government owns it, it’s basically their rainy day fund and this is what they use to fund these subsidiaries.
The sovereign wealth fund in Norway is comprised almost entirely of oil money, oil, and oil gas money, and fossil fuels.
Norway is a huge producer of oil and gas and they sell that to other countries and reap the benefits in terms of revenue and put that into the sovereign wealth fund which then gets funneled into subsidies for electric cars.
So they’re not burning the oil in Norway and releasing the carbon into the atmosphere but they’re sending off to go be burned somewhere else.
Also Read: Can Sea Wsater Desalination solve the World’s Water Crisis?
The fact that Norway is exporting its carbon footprint to other countries, it doesn’t cancel out all the wonderful progressive green things that they’re doing in Norway. And this is all part of the plan to end sales of gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2025.
The Norwegian Parliament has also decided on a goal that all new cars sold by 2025 should be zero (battery electric or hydrogen) emission vehicles.
This is a very ambitious but feasible goal with the right policy measures. The Parliament will reach this goal with a strengthened green tax system, not a ban.
This article is about incentives and green infrastructure and a green society but it’s also an article about how fossil fuels continue to make the world goes round.
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I read this post it's quite in
formative and amazing for me… Go green…..