Rocksolid Light

Welcome to novaBBS (click a section below)

mail  files  register  newsreader  groups  login

Message-ID:  

To understand a program you must become both the machine and the program.


tech / alt.engineering.electrical / Why Norway - the poster child for electric cars - is having second thoughts

SubjectAuthor
o Why Norway - the poster child for electric cars - is having second thoughtsuseapen

1
Why Norway - the poster child for electric cars - is having second thoughts

<XnsB0AF12EBE31B5BX@135.181.20.170>

 copy mid

https://www.novabbs.com/tech/article-flat.php?id=243&group=alt.engineering.electrical#243

 copy link   Newsgroups: no.alt.diskusjoner alt.energy.automobile alt.engineering.electrical alt.fan.rush-limbaugh talk.politics.guns
Path: i2pn2.org!rocksolid2!news.neodome.net!news.mixmin.net!eternal-september.org!feeder2.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: yourd...@outlook.com (useapen)
Newsgroups: no.alt.diskusjoner,alt.energy.automobile,alt.engineering.electrical,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,talk.politics.guns
Subject: Why Norway - the poster child for electric cars - is having second thoughts
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2023 08:51:36 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 321
Message-ID: <XnsB0AF12EBE31B5BX@135.181.20.170>
Injection-Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2023 08:51:36 -0000 (UTC)
Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="edad13bb915fb018d659d204155e602f";
logging-data="1623418"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+/3ksPfCYuYUn017sQ/Xf9Y43lDcbt0pE="
User-Agent: Xnews/2009.05.01
Cancel-Lock: sha1:7ZzVHGats4jadbRPpiDbez32d5A=
 by: useapen - Wed, 1 Nov 2023 08:51 UTC

OSLO, Norway � With motor vehicles generating nearly a 10th of global CO2
emissions, governments and environmentalists around the world are
scrambling to mitigate the damage. In wealthy countries, strategies often
revolve around electrifying cars � and for good reason, many are looking
to Norway for inspiration.

Over the last decade, Norway has emerged as the world�s undisputed leader
in electric vehicle adoption. With generous government incentives
available, 87 percent of the country�s new car sales are now fully
electric, a share that dwarfs that of the European Union (13 percent) and
the United States (7 percent). Norway�s muscular EV push has garnered
headlines in outlets like the New York Times and the Guardian while
drawing praise from the Environmental Defense Fund, the World Economic
Forum, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. �I�d like to thank the people of Norway
again for their incredible support of electric vehicles,� he tweeted last
December. �Norway rocks!!�

I�ve been writing about transportation for the better part of a decade, so
all that fawning international attention piqued my curiosity. Does Norway
offer a climate strategy that other countries could copy chapter and
verse? Or has the hype outpaced the reality?

So I flew across the Atlantic to see what the fuss was about. I discovered
a Norwegian EV bonanza that has indeed reduced emissions � but at the
expense of compromising vital societal goals. Eye-popping EV subsidies
have flowed largely to the affluent, contributing to the gap between rich
and poor in a country proud of its egalitarian social policies.
Worse, the EV boom has hobbled Norwegian cities� efforts to untether
themselves from the automobile and enable residents to instead travel by
transit or bicycle, decisions that do more to reduce emissions, enhance
road safety, and enliven urban life than swapping a gas-powered car for an
electric one.

Despite the hosannas from abroad, Norway�s government has begun to unwind
some of its electrification subsidies in order to mitigate the downsides
of no-holds-barred EV promotion.

�Countries should introduce EV subsidies in a way that doesn�t widen
inequality or stimulate car use at the expense of other transport modes,�
Bj�rne Grimsrud, director of the transportation research center T�I, told
me over coffee in Oslo. �But that�s what ended up happening here in
Norway.�

And it could happen in other countries, too, including in the United
States, where transportation is the single largest source of greenhouse
gas emissions. The federal government now offers tantalizing rebates to
Americans in the market for an electric car, but nothing at all for more
climate-friendly vehicles like e-bikes or golf carts (nor a financial
lifeline for beleaguered public subway and bus systems).

Ending the sales of gas-powered cars, as Norway is close to doing, is an
essential step toward addressing climate change. But a 2020 study found
that even the most optimistic forecasts for global EV adoption would not
prevent a potentially catastrophic 2 degree Celsius rise in global
temperatures. Reducing driving � not just gas-powered driving � is
crucial.

As the world�s EV trendsetter, Norway�s experience offers a bevy of
lessons for other nations seeking to decarbonize transportation. But some
of those lessons are cautionary.

How Norway fell in love with the electric car
At first glance, Norway�s EV embrace might seem odd. The country lacks a
domestic auto industry and its dominant export is, of all things, fossil
fuels. Nevertheless, Norway�s unique geography and identity helped put it
at the vanguard of car electrification.

Historically, Norway has been mostly rural; as recently as 1960, half the
nation�s population resided in the countryside. But as the postwar economy
boomed, Norwegians migrated to cities, and especially to their fast-
growing, sprawling suburbs (much as Americans did at the time). They also
fell hard for the automobile.

�The car was this genius idea for Norwegians,� Ulrik Eriksen, author of
the book A Country on Four Wheels, told me over dinner in Oslo, after
stashing his cargo e-bike. �Because there is plenty of land, cars opened
up urban space for people to live in, letting more of them get sizable
single-family homes.�

Norway embarked on a road-building binge, constructing bridges over fjords
and boring tunnels through mountains to connect downtowns with new
neighborhoods on the urban fringe. As Norwegian cities expanded, public
transit took a back seat. Bergen, for instance, shuttered its extensive
tramway service in the 1960s, dumping some of the trams into the North
Sea.

Those decisions cast a long shadow: Norway still has one of Europe�s
lowest rates of public transportation usage and a higher car ownership
rate than Denmark and Sweden, its Scandinavian neighbors. �Most Norwegian
cities now have more of a car-centric, American approach toward
transportation than a multi-modal, European one,� Eriksen said.

Norway�s city residents often own an automobile even though they seldom
use it, Oslo-based urban planner Anine Hartmann told me. �Norwegians
identify as coming from the place where their parents or grandparents come
from,� she said. �Many people have a car to return to that place or simply
to visit a cabin in the country.�

By the 1990s, the automobile was Norway�s indispensable vehicle. It was
then that Norwegian entrepreneurs launched two early electric car
startups, Buddy and Think. Though their models were clunky and inefficient
by today�s standards, the companies spurred excitement that Norway could
become a global hub of EV production. Seeking to give the carmakers a
tailwind, the Norwegian government exempted EVs from the country�s steep
taxes on car purchases, which today add an average of $27,000 to each
sale. Even better, EV owners � who at the time were few and far between �
would not pay for tolls, parking, or ferries (over all those fjords)
anywhere in the country.

Norway�s dreams of becoming a global hub of EV manufacturing quickly
fizzled when the companies ran into financial problems. (This summer, I
spotted a tiny, aged Buddy squeezed into an Oslo parking spot, dwarfed by
SUVs on either side.) But the incentives remained on the books; since few
people were buying EVs, their cost was negligible.

That changed as the global EV market improved in the mid-2010s, with
carmakers like Tesla offering stylish, high-performance models that
attracted more buyers. Norway�s EV policies were now championed as a
centerpiece of the national effort to slow climate change in an economy
whose electricity is already clean, produced largely from hydropower. �We
want people to buy electric cars,� Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg
said in 2019. �It is the most important thing you can do personally and
privately to help reduce climate emissions.�

As EV models improved, Norwegians began to realize how valuable the cost
savings from government incentives could be, particularly for urban
commuters. After an already discounted EV purchase, owners� ongoing
expenses were minimal because Norwegian electricity is inexpensive (due to
abundant hydropower), and EVs were exempt from tolls, parking, and
ferries. EV owners were even invited to drive in bus-only lanes.

Hundreds of thousands of Norwegians responded to the government�s
invitation to buy an EV, seemingly saving money and the planet in one fell
swoop. But not every EV purchase replaced a gas guzzler; Grimsrud noted
that the Norwegians owned 10 percent more cars per capita at the end of
the 2010s than they did at the decade�s outset, in large part due to the
EV incentives. �The families who could afford a second or third car ran
off to the shop and bought one,� he said.

Norway�s incentives have unquestionably reshaped the country�s car market
and reduced carbon emissions. EVs� share of new vehicle sales surged from
1 percent in 2014 to 83 percent today. Around one in four cars on
Norwegian roads is now electric, and the country�s surface transportation
emissions fell 8.3 percent between 2014 and 2023.

The national government seems ready to declare victory. �When it comes to
electrical vehicles, I�m quite proud,� Cecilie Knibe Kroglund, Norway�s
state secretary for transportation, told me at the Oslo headquarters of
the Ministry of Transport. �My main lesson is that incentives work. We
have succeeded at a large scale.�

But not everyone shares her enthusiasm. Although the EV rush has reduced
tailpipe emissions, it has also entrenched car dependence, which inflicts
other kinds of damage. �Climate change gave Norway an opportunity to
change how we travel,� said Eriksen. �I worry we had this once-in-a-
generation chance to fix our transportation network, and we blew it.�

EV subsidies fueled car sales, but Norway�s cities want fewer cars
As electric car sales picked up throughout the 2010s, Norway placed few
constraints on its EV incentives. Wealthy Norwegians could buy as many
high-end EVs as they liked, receiving a full package of subsidies on each
one. Luxury carmakers like Porsche advertised Norway�s promotions in their
marketing materials.


Click here to read the complete article
1
server_pubkey.txt

rocksolid light 0.9.7
clearnet tor