[Norway](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_CFRv5jxug) is on a path to becoming a fully electric country by phasing out petrol-driven vehicles. From Elon Musk’s Tesla and Volkswagen AG’s Volkswagen to Toyota and Volvo, nearly all prominent brands offer their EVs in Norway. Additionally, Norway is converting its ferries, buses, and trucks to electric. The country provides attractive incentives to electric vehicle users, which encourages people to adopt EVs over petrol cars. Norway’s goal is to create a more sustainable, emission-free country where everyone can breathe the cleanest air on Earth. But how are they doing it?
by afisaaaaa
![Rivian says no plans with VW to produce Vehicles [beyond software] with VW after media report on early talks (Unrelated to Scout)](https://www.evshift.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/rrldIR5Ap9XqZYTyA8uin7bli16chCloCLU2UNrBj1E-770x515.jpg "Rivian says no plans with VW to produce Vehicles [beyond software] with VW after media report on early talks (Unrelated to Scout)")
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They removed taxes on EVs whilst doubling them on ICE cars, allowed EVs to drive in bus and MOV lanes by default, etc. Basically made EVs the easy choice.
The vast majority of Norway’s electrical power comes from hydroelectric power plants… electricity is very cheap there. They ironically enough have substantial offshore oil holdings, most of which they sell elsewhere. And they are not science denying right-wing Nazi moronic fuckwads.
They use policy to encourage the correct behaviours.
Right policies to incentivise and tons of cheap, clean electricity that can scale up and down easily. Hydro Power magic.
They sell a shit ton of oil and put the money towards their sovereign wealth fund which is the biggest in the world as of 2023 $1.6 trillion. They then incentivize ev adoption with said funds.
Norway has immense oil production per capita…#5 in the world behind Qatar, Kuwait, Equatorial Guinea, and the United Arab Emirates. They’ve chosen to continue drilling for more and more petroleum from off-shore platforms, despite the inevitable environmental damage, and have channeled some of the profits into public charging stations and EV subsidies.
They have huge special taxes on ICE, making it that a normal Golf was as expensive as a Tesla, making it a no brainer.
multiple factors.
Norway is incredibly rich both the government and the inhabitants, which means they could easily afford expensive EVs long before anyone else on top of this the government heavily subsidized EVs for over a decade.
Why is Norway so rich?
Natural resources, mostly oil and gas.
Norway also has almost unlimited hydroelectric power which makes power extremely cheap.
And of course Norway has a relatively small population and an even smaller car market so all of this change was possible even with small EV production numbers.
Aaaand finally Norway has a pretty high population density when you actually look at where people are living.
80% of the population is living on about 25% of the land and are within ~500km of each other.
That means Norway only really needed to build EV infrastructure on about 7 relatively short high ways and that enabled 80% of the population to get to each other even with short range EVs.
First, set very, very high taxes on cars decades in advance. Norway was and likely is famous with their high car prices. Then, make an exemption for electric vehicles. The transition to BEV takes off. Done.
They exempted EVs from extremely high excise taxes that they levy on ICE vehicles, automatically making EVs the most cost-effective option by default.
**The Norwegian band A-ha was a big early proponent of EVs** (even importing an electric Fiat Panda back in the late 80s) and pushed for benefits for EVs such as toll exemptions and the right to drive on bus lanes (these have slowly been repealed or lessened since the mass adoption of EVs).
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-63375504
And Norway made an early start on BEVs. When I visited in 2004 you already saw quite a few electric cars based on the original Smart
Socialism. What else could it be? /s
1. Small cars are common and practical in Europe, so no stigma about driving small cars, and early EVs (2000s pre-Tesla ) were all small and were fairly common already.
2. Free street parking AND street charging for EVs (Street charging is everywhere in Oslo)
3. Free road tolls for EVs.
4. EVs are allowed to use the bus lanes to bypass traffic.
5. Zero (near zero?) sales taxes and registration costs when buying EVs
6. A country that is very environmentally conscious, with very close daily connections to nature, even in the cities.
7. Modern EVs actually work well in freezing conditions because people no longer have to worry about defrosting/deicing cars, -20C interiors – it can all be pre-heated for you drive to work in the morning.
8. The average Norwegian is far wealthier than almost any other citizen…maybe it’s all the stuff they don’t have to spend money on like education, health and childcare…all free.
9. ICE vehicles will be banned from new car sales NEXT YEAR 2025
Edit: Need to add that many of these policies have, or are being, phased out over the past few years.
You can thank the Norwegian band [A-Ha.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzdD8kbDzZA)
They teamed up with an environmentalist, Prof Rostvik 35 years ago and pushed for incentives for EV owners.
[Here is the back story around their success. ](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-63375504)
Norway is a rich oil and gas producing country, but that only made i easier for Norway to make the transtion, but its not the reason.
Norway tried getting in to the car production game back in the 90’s, with a small electric car named Think. The Norwegian government then implemented the tax incentives for electric cars to help out the new company. Think went bankrupt after some years, but the tax incentives stayed on the books.
Then came the the climate agreements where Norway agreed to cut CO2 emissions inside their own borders. Since Norway already had enough clean electricity and the necessary policies needed for EVs, they then chose that route because it was the lowest hanging fruit avaliable for the government.
Cutting emissions by stopping oil and gas production was and is politically impossible and it is almost impossible to do it in industry or agriculture, so road traffic emmissions is whats left.
EVs have become dominant in Norway by necessity and accident.
There has been a Think EV in my Bay Area neighborhood for years.
Several factors:
* tax exemptions for EVs make them very affordable compared to ICE cars.
* some perks for EVs
* subsidies for charging infrastructure
* no domestic car manufacturers (read: no lobby pushback, no FUD campaigns in the media)
* long term planning for the change away from fossil fuels by allocating profits from oil and gas into a special fund (read: by prudent planning they now have the money to fund such efforts so the political quarreling with regard to budget isn’t as intense)
* aggreesive legislation ending the domestic sales of ICE cars in 2025
* and the big one: ***a populace who aren’t complete idiots.***
2 words.
Morten Harket (Singer from A-Ha)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-63375504
Back in the day Norway had a EV called Think. Now cars in Norway are taxed heavily and the government in order to support this homegrown carmaker changed regulations and the tax code so that it would be more competitive in the Norwegian market.
After a while Think shut down, but the changes and regulations still stood so that when Tesla came along a couple of years later with a much better car it was much more well received. At the time of the first Model S arrival the price point compared to what else was available was very good, and it stayed good for approx a decade, combine this with very cheap electricity and you have a winner.
Nowadays the government is backtracking on most of these advantageous tax codes and regulations for EVs and the electricity is exported to Europe so that electricity prices are much higher.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_City](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_City)
We had very high taxes on cars before there were any relevant EVs. These taxes range from one-time taxes on purchase, annual taxes and road use taxes. We also have very high taxes on fuel.
Then back in 2008 there was a Norwegian EV startup called think! who made an EV called Think! City. They successfully lobbied (via proxies) for reduced taxes and for EVs.
This resulted in that EVs were exempted from pretty much all car specific taxes and VAT, got access to bus lanes and free parking in many cities.
A fair bit of these incentives have been rolled back since then, but there are still significant incentives remaining on one-time taxes including VAT exemptions and road tolls.
Infrastructure have grown organically to support EVs so fast charging access is good, and many cities have a fair bit of AC chargers for those without access to home charging. Most people in norway are homeowners and most will have access to charge at home though. There are laws in place to prevent the equivalent of home owners associations (Sameie or Borettslag in norwegian) to unreasonably fail to provide access to charging on shared parking facilities.
It helps that electricity is widely used for heating and cooking in Norway (practically no one uses gas, and oil furnaces are outlawed), which means homes already have fairly robust electrical intakes.
As long as EVs remain on at least parity with other cars in total cost you will be considered a bit weird and contrarian to buy anything but an EV now.
An ev battery costs north of $10,000. The average salary in Norway is $5200 per month. The Norway government implemented incentives to bring ev prices to the ice level. People bought EVs.
If you had tried the same in my country Bulgaria, you’d have been unsuccessful. The average salary here is around $1200. So even if the state removed tax on EVs, they’d still be too expensive compared to our standard.
There’s no magic. It’s just that EVs were never really expensive for Norwegians due to their high standard and the state supported the transition.
China is the EV capital of the world Nor is only one buyer anong others
They’re rich
Free parking, free bridge/tunnel toll, less taxes, cheap electricity (they already had), and of couse more expensive petrol (like close to $7/gallon).
Denmark is quickly shifting towards EV as well. We have the critical mass now. Nobody wants to go back to petrol powered cars. Reduced taxes on EVs, some cities have free or discounted EV parking. And we have cheap electricity as well, especially at home. In the summer around $0 per kWh + $0.03 in transport fees. In winter a bit higher.
Oil money
EVs had no tax. So that created a situation where Norwegians were finally able to buy good cars at sane prices. ICE cars have always been heavily taxed here. To the point where many ICE cars would cost double what they cost in other countries. Sometimes more.
Found this while researching – great amount of data, must say. [Why Norway is the EV capital?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_CFRv5jxug)
They manipulated the free market with punitive taxes and government grants.
>But how are they doing it?
Sticks and carrots.
* Stick: High VAT on ICE vehicles (these were already in place).
* Carrot: Low or no VAT on EVs
It also helps to be an insanely rich country, so that collecting taxes is more of a government hobby than a necessity.
Large incentives on EVs while adding very high VAT on ICE vehicles.
That’s it. They made it less expensive to buy an EV through government regulations.