Tesla Model 3 accounted for over 12% of Norwegian auto market in Jan-July

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/08/16/tesla-model-3-12-4-of-all-norwegian-vehicle-sales-january-july-2019/

by rawland • 7 years ago

126 96 7 years ago

cleantechnica.com

obtino• 7 years ago

With the price of fuel in Norway, it's not surprising to see people turning towards EV.

markdown• 7 years ago

Surprising. Most oil-producing countries have dirt-cheap domestic fuel prices.

FartyMcFarter• 7 years ago

Norway is more forward thinking than most countries.

They know that oil is not going to make their country rich forever.

kwhitefoot• 7 years ago

But domestic fuel is not cheap here (Norway). Petrol is nearly USD 2/litre, close to USD 8 per US gallon.

Electricity is slightly cheaper than some other European countries but that is changing as more and more HVDC interconnects are built and the prices are affected by the market.

kayoone2• 7 years ago

It's mostly taxes, EV cars have no extra tax which makes them cheaper than petrol cars which often have 100% tax added to their price, which is not really the case in most other countries.

sushikokk• 7 years ago

True, also there is no VAT (which is 25%) on EV cars, and it used to be free to drive on toll roads (this year we have to pay, but much less than the petrol cars). Also, we can drive in the bus/taxi lanes.

Pete-Codes• 7 years ago

I was speaking to a Norwegian friend last night and she confirmed it. There are so many incentives like paying less/no vehicle tax and yeah, they are 100% hydroelectric so they are perfect place. Might have to move there!

burntoutfire2• 7 years ago

The Teslas are not more affordable there than in the US, they're just less of a bad option - petrol cars are taxed so heavily in the Nordics that it makes an electric a good value for money. You're still better off in the US though, where electric costs the same, but you have an option of reasonably priced petrol cars.

Synaesthesia• 7 years ago

Well that’s good that they’re racing petrol cars and I applaud them for doing it. They’re wealthy enough to be able to afford it. It’s what’s necessary to move away from carbon.

alkonaut• 7 years ago

Nordics is actually too general. Denmark and Norway do this, Sweden does not.

(Guess which one has a car industry)

mikeash• 7 years ago

Unfortunately, you don’t have the option of not breathing in the exhaust of everyone else’s petrol cars.

botto• 7 years ago

I do wonder how the electrical grid in Norway is going to hold up to the massive increase in demand that EV charging will cause.

Traster2• 7 years ago

Norway is in a great position, they're world leaders in hydro and their geography makes that a great source of energy. In 2015 Norway's Hydro-electric generation accounted for 95.8% of it's electricity generation. Norway accounts for half of Europe's entire hydro reservoir capacity. Meanwhile if demand rises they can also import electricity via the North Sea wind power hub, or from Sweden.

That's one of the great things about electric cars in Norway - you're actually going to get electricity from renewable sources.

arcticfox• 7 years ago

What is the ecological impact of hydro there? In the US PNW we seem to be taking out hydro due to fish rather than putting in new dams, although I haven't followed it closely

atomwaffel• 7 years ago

That's one of the great things about electric cars in Norway - you're actually going to get electricity from renewable sources.

This is true in a way, but only part of the picture. While virtually all the electricity that is produced in Norway does come from renewable sources, Norwegian energy producers sell a lot of their “guarantees of origin”[1] to energy companies in other European countries, who are then in turn allowed to market their energy as renewable. You can think of these as a kind of “virtual export”: Norway sells its energy to the rest of the continent and receives the “European Attribute Mix” in return. Since it would be pointless and inefficient to physically transfer this energy, virtual certificates are traded instead.

Because of this, the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate declares the energy consumed in Norway as being 58% fossil, 33% nuclear, and only 9% renewable[2], but Norwegian politicians and energy companies tend to forget this and prefer to emphasise the point that 98% of all energy produced in the country is renewable. Both claims are true, but somewhere someone is getting screwed over.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarantee_of_origin [2] https://www.nve.no/energiforsyning/varedeklarasjon/nasjonal-... (in Norwegian)

disordinary• 7 years ago

In NZ they recon that electrifying the entire vehicle fleet will only add about 25% demand to the grid, this is somewhat mitigated by the vehicles charging mostly off-peak and when hooked up to a smart meter would actually feed electricity back into the grid when required making the grid more efficient.

Theodores• 7 years ago

This is the future, a vast fleet of mobile batteries that smooth out the grid enabling renewables that only work when the sun shines or the air moves to supply all the electricity we need.

People also overlook the costs of refining petrol and getting it distributed preferring to stress out about how on earth are we going to charge every car. This latter point is quite simple albeit requiring infrastructure. Lamp-posts are charging points in the making as are car parks. We dug up the roads to put in broadband internet quite recently, it is for the politicians to rig the market for EV cars and charge points so that there is a similar roll out.

pi-rat3• 7 years ago

We're handling it with smart grids and variable pricing.

My power company has a GraphQL API[1] where I can read my current consumption (5 second resolution), they also offer up the current price, including an indicator of the price level compared to how they see the rest of the day (CHEAP, NORMAL, EXPENSIVE).

All houses/apartments in Norway got new smart power meters installed the last couple of years. They standardized on a data interface (a bus you can connect to using a RJ45 plug), so you can access your own data if you don't want to go via your power companies API.

There are EV chargers[2] and other appliances (Heat pumps/ACs) that can react to this price indicator, charging your car when power is cheapest.

It will also load balance based on how much the rest of your house is using, they're moving towards an "wattage" fee here, to avoid massive loads at peak hours. If you get near the limit, the car charger can slow down.

Here's some images of what their app gives me[3]. It's easy to pull their data into home automation systems, here's mine[4].

You can do pretty smart stuff like: Charge my car when it's cheap, but it must be ready by 07:00.

Public parking garages with hundreds of chargers install battery banks to even out the load. See a video tour of one of them[5].

[1] https://developer.tibber.com/docs/guides/calling-api

[2] https://norge.tibber.com/products/easee/

[3] https://imgur.com/a/RYYqcjY

[4] https://imgur.com/a/8ef0jck

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktNKWLwjQJM

petascale• 7 years ago

Not all that massive: 6% increase if all cars and vans (excluding e.g. big rigs and tractors) go electric, according to the Norwegian national grid institute[1] (in Norwegian). Some local grids will need an upgrade, but the national transmission and distribution grid can handle it if 'smart' charging solutions shift the bulk of the charging to happen at night and other low-demand periods.

Norway uses a lot of electricity even without EVs, so it's not a very large increase percentage wise. E.g. we don't have gas pipes to homes like some places in the USA, so stoves are all electric and a lot of heating is electric as well.

[1] https://www.nve.no/nytt-fra-nve/nyheter-energi/stromnettet-e...

Traster2• 7 years ago

It's depressing looking at the other EVs on that list. Where's my electric BMW 3 series?

Over the last decade people have been quite rightly pointing out that Tesla are in trouble because sticking some batteries and electric engines into a car isn't actually crazy difficult and all Tesla's production problems will kill it in competition with real car manufacturers. Yet somehow that just hasn't happened at all. The people who talked about the inability of large incumbents to react were dead right.

I'm still bearish on Tesla - I think they've pumped their share price with false claims about self-driving, but they have really dominated electric vehicles.

kayoone2• 7 years ago

That is true, albeit it's slowly changing. I recently drove the VW eGolf and it was a really nice experience. I also drove the Model 3 which has better range and is faster, but also more expensive. I prefer the interior quality of the Golf though. There are also alternatives from the Japanese companies.

I think the reason is rather the immense popularity and hype around Tesla that makes it the number one choice for most people that have money and want an EV.

dzhiurgis• 7 years ago

I think Tesla needs even cheaper/smaller model. 3 is pretty big and expensive for majority of Europeans, especially with little incentives.

spiderfarmer• 7 years ago

Next year will be a big year for EV where loads of new electric models will be available in the EU. Tesla will probably still dominate, I think they’ll mostly take market share from gasoline models.

raphaelj2• 7 years ago

I'm actually thinking the opposite.

Tesla strategy was to put the first desirable electrical car on the market, which they succeed at doing.

The strategy of most traditional manufacturers is very different. They want to make the most profitable car. And it seems like no EV will be as profitable as ICE vehicles until batteries will be more or less price competitive with ICE.

I'm pretty sure that their target is to release an EV when batteries will be so cheap that it wouldn't make sense to buy an ICE car anymore. And this is not yet the case, as it will most probably happen in the early 2020s. Before that time, any manufactured EV has a pretty high opportunity cost compared to an ICE car. e.g. BMW still makes a such high margin (almost 10%) on ICE cars that selling unprofitable EV just does not make sense from a business standpoint.

Nickste2• 7 years ago

The model 3 is estimated to have a 30% gross margin [1]. So it seems incorrect to say that the traditional manufacturers are waiting for battery prices to fall, as it’s clearly possible to build a high margin EV today.

[1] https://jalopnik.com/engineering-firm-that-said-tesla-model-...

edejong• 7 years ago

The established car manufacturers are too highly optimized for their specific suppliers. Over many decades an internal culture appears within these companies that immunizes against heavy risks. This is done by (unconsciously) selecting for certain personality traits in upper management and by forming certain specific ties to the first and secondary surroundings of the company.

In short: companies petrify around local optima given time.

alexandros2• 7 years ago

"quite rightly", "sticking some batteries"... Its fascinating that you do realize that the people who disagree with you have been right, and yet you're not updating your model. Look up Sandy Munro, a car guy's car guy, talking about his teardown of the model 3[1], or even just focus on his comment about the superbottle, and perhaps you'll get a better sense of why nobody has matched the 2012 Model S yet, nevermind the 2019 one.

[1] https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/06/auto-industry-expert-in...

close043• 7 years ago

You have to consider that if a car becomes attractive only after a country removes the 25% VAT on it and then taxes competing products (ICE) up to 100% then the business model of the classic manufacturers still very much makes sense everywhere else in the world where this isn’t the case.

So depending on how you pick and choose the data you want to consider you can paint absolutely any picture you want.

What’s your personal take on why people would go for other new cars that don’t match even a 7 year old model but cost the same(ish)?

baybal23• 7 years ago

I think he is just too sensational. Is this guy doing actual engineering?

From whomever I talked, I hear the same: Tesla's engineering leaves mixed impressions.

One can say that the range is definitely good - Tesla scores very high in getting most range out of kw/h. But things like poor metalworking would be a recall worthy flaw for every other automaker.

For the interior, Model S feels way too American. Compare its interior and an actual luxury car, like a maxed out Benz S600.

Its engineering in overall is nothing groundbreaking, and saying that EVs are way more straightforward to engineer is true. Telsa just stands out as one EV maker that didn't make some "showstopper" omissions, unlike almost every other competitor.

Chinese and Japanese EVs are dead on arrival in US because most of them are really small for Americans... If an American buys an expensive car, it will most likely be a BIG car.

Poor driveabiliy chases other competitors. There are simply not so many makers with experience making 2.5t+ full sized sedans, nor compact car makers which can make a compact car suspension not to croak under 1.7t+ curb weight.

NIO for examples despite making a quite marketable SUV for China was delayed launch for 2 years because their first attempt at making SUV got so much bad reviews from test drivers, that they had to near completely redesign the body and suspension twice. Reportedly, after finding out that live axle is a completely inadequate for a 2t+ vehicle, and that unibody design can't handle the weight of a battery pack.

Leaf had both tiny battery, poor chemistry, and poor thermals.

Bolt - all bad things you normally expect from a US car maker other than Ford.

And so on.

jillesvangurp• 7 years ago

I'm actually bullish on Tesla because what I see is a couple of very high risk investments actually starting to deliver on their promises against what 'sane' investors have been saying was not possible. You might actually consider Tesla's stock undervalued if you believe that Tesla still has a few high risk investments left that are about to start paying off.

IMHO their investments in solar are problematic but also not without merit if they manage to turn this around. It's a huge growing market and they seem to have some interesting products and ideas to reduce cost.

Their acquisition of Maxwell is looking like it might give them another competitive edge with batteries with a feasible path to 400g/kwh and beyond. IMHO that's is going to give them a huge edge for the next decade where most of their competitors do not have access to in house battery designs or production capacity.

They have a giga factory coming online soon (China) to address supply issues. Model y, the truck, and pickup truck coming to the market soonish and are already generating plenty of hype.

Then there's the powerwall situation and the notion that lots of energy companies are discovering that they love owning batteries.

Even the self driving car thing might still work out. I hear people claiming that this is impossible. But I'm actually more and more convinced that self driving cars are happening sooner rather than later. Maybe it's not going to be all that it is hyped up to be right away but even level 4 autonomy is going to be pretty nice.

All these things are sucking up a lot of investment money and it is obviously a risky investment. But their track record of eventually delivering working stuff is not completely horrible.

dahfizz2• 7 years ago

I think people really underestimate the engineering and manufacturing that goes into an electric car. Tesla got the jump, and now they're ahead of the competition.

For example, the gigfactory is the world largest car battery manufacturer by a factor of 2. That's a massive and slow investment any competitor needs to make to sell EVs in volume.

And making an EV is not trivial. Let's compare the Tesla model 3 and Nissan leaf 2, which are in the same price range:

- Tesla has better range.

- Tesla is the faster car.

- Tesla has much faster charging.

None of these things are revolutionary, but taken together it's clear to the consumer that Tesla is further ahead than the competition. I'm not going to buy a slower, less efficient car for the same amount of money.

Edit: formatting

lazyjones• 7 years ago

Also:

- Tesla has a working fast charging infrastructure

- Tesla has the better AP

Dumblydorr• 7 years ago

In the same comment you say you're bearish and yet admit they have a massive EV tech lead over BMW and the ICE feet draggers. The reality is those companies make money off fossil fuel drivetrains, and Tesla makes money off battery drivetrains, so even if FSD doesn't deliver Tesla simply continues to make way more efficient cars with a much better charging network.

puranjay2• 7 years ago

Anyone who says that an electric car is just some batteries and an electric engine should read about the massive, complicated supply chains necessary to build cars at scale. Throw in regulations and taxation issues - which are different in virtually every market - and you have a huge operational nightmare.

It's one thing to build a car in your garage by sourcing parts from around the world, and another to build 1M cars in a giant factory

d0mine• 7 years ago

If it were about supply chains, Apple would do it.

kilroy123• 7 years ago

I was talking to a big wig at Ford the other day, without too much detail, he works on their EV program. He admitted they are behind and Tesla is actually way ahead of the competition in many areas.

It _is_ difficult to put a battery and electric engines in a car and they've run into difficulties. Though it sounds like they're on their way to putting out a decent EV, and he thinks they and others will eventually catch up.

He also thinks Telsa will ultimately be killed by Chinese battery manufactures, which I thought was interesting.

jdhn2• 7 years ago

Did he say what areas Tesla was ahead in?

JBiserkov• 7 years ago

Some context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_N...

drmacak• 7 years ago

I still feel that only EV is not the answer. You have also get the electricity somewhere so some investment in modern nucler power plants and fusion would be even better then just blindly pushing EVs.

braythwayt• 7 years ago

Chickens and eggs?

Perhaps in an ideal world, pushing demand for electrical power is how we would get to investing in clean electricity generation.

thinkcontext• 7 years ago

To get to zero carbon emissions we'll need both zero carbon transportation and zero carbon electricity. $100B's are being invested in zero carbon electricity, so your suggestion that EVs are taking away from that are mistaken.

As for nuclear, the US and Europe have been unable to build plants that do not go 3x+ over budget and time.

belltaco• 7 years ago

The electricity produced in Norway is 95% hydroelectric, so it makes all the sense to push EVs there.

kevin42• 7 years ago

Even if you get the electricity from burning fossil fuels it is a win because electric cars are a LOT more efficient, and it's more efficient to generate electricity from a single, large generator than by shipping fuel to gas stations and powering many small ICE engines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_per_gallon_gasoline_equi...

Plus, as a Model 3 owner, it's really great car.

Merrill• 7 years ago

Looks like a quite different car market. The first 3-row SUV is the Mitsubishi Outlander in 6th place. The market looks like mostly compact sedans and compact/subcompact SUVs. There is a lack of pickups and mid/large SUVs.

From other sources, it appears that the VW Transporter/Caravelle and the VW Caddy both sell in volumes that would put them in the middle of the list. So there may be a difference in how light vehicles are classified between the US and Norway. https://www.statista.com/statistics/731767/number-of-sold-va...

varjag2• 7 years ago

Different than North America maybe. Not different from most of Europe.

bryanlarsen4• 7 years ago

A car sold today is more likely than not to still be on the road in 2030. Meeting our 2030 goals would be a lot easier if the majority of cars sold this year were zero-emissions world-wide.

thewhitetulip2• 7 years ago

I'm waiting for a reliable long range battery vehicle. Most vehicles in Indian market have to replace batteries in 5yrs.

pi-rat3• 7 years ago

Didn’t the Hyundai Kona launch recently in India? I’m super happy with mine here in Norway. Comes with a 8 year battery warranty here. Easily does over 500 km per charge on Norwegian roads.

thewhitetulip2• 7 years ago

It did. But the issue is the price. It costs equal to an entry level Mercedes or Audi

marvin3• 7 years ago

For Norwegians currently looking for an electric car, it's a no-brainer. It's slightly more expensive than the Nissan Leaf 2 that has similar range, but you also get the option of a tow hitch, and the driving experience is in a different league. Plus access to supercharger network that actually works and doesn't require fifteen minutes of fiddling every time.

My parents just bought one in spite of having initially dismissed it as likely too expensive. Turned out to be perfectly competitive with everything that's comparable in range and features, and a much better user experience overall. We'll see how the service and reliability turns out, that's the only wildcard I can think of.

mikekchar3• 7 years ago

Can you expand on a few of your comments. I have an older Leaf in Japan and I've never seen a Model 3 before, so I'm curious about the difference.

- "the driving experience is in a different league". In what way? I was surprised at how much I enjoy driving the leaf (except for very poor turning radius, which I can't quite understand). What's better in the Model 3?

- "doesn't require fifteen minutes of fiddling every time". What does that mean? I don't have trouble charging my Leaf. Is that something specific about the supercharger network (which isn't in Japan), or are you referring to something else?

eganist• 7 years ago

Not the parent comment, but having driven the model S, X, and 3 (and decided against buying for reasons completely unrelated to the cars themselves), I can probably offer the following insight:

The center of gravity for a tesla, regardless of model, is absurdly low. The end result of this is that driving one feels like the car's running on rails, even with the tightest turns. Couple that with the use of electric motors with instant torque (providing likely north of 750 hp/torque with the model S), you've got a car which gives you options.

You can race it around and drive like a jerk, sure. But even as a civilized driver, the capability to do almost anything with the car is an enabling factor.

---

Don't get me wrong; you can get this from a few other electric cars (the Jag i-Pace comes to mind). But that's probably the advantage the Model 3 has over others; it can maintain the driving dynamics/experience against competition a few Toyota Camrys more expensive.

pi-rat3• 7 years ago

Not OP, but..

The superchargers just work. Arrive, plug in, it's charging.

Other fast chargers are often much more cumbersome, requiring you to installing an app, registering an RFID tag, adding your credit card, etc. I've 6 different apps installed on my phone for different charging networks here in Norway, and 2-3 RFID tags in my car.

Many of them are also unstable, or have terrible UX and weird quirks. If you need to make a seven minute video[1] to explain how to use it, you're doing it wrong..

It's getting better though, software is improving, growing pains handled. A future CCS revision (the most used charge plug in Europe) will include "plug&charge" with payment handled by the car - making it more super charger like.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLe5jvx0NkI

marvin3• 7 years ago

Keep in mind that I don't own any of these cars (or any car). I am not a car guy. I have spent many hours in first-generation Leafs and a couple in Leaf 2 & Model 3, mostly through my local micro-rental service. You really should try this out for yourself :)

Not being a car guy, it's hard to explain, sort of like the difference between Android and iOS, or even more uncannily, between iPhone 7 and iPhone X, which shouldn't feel so different but do. It's like there's many small details that are below the threshold of perception which come together to make it an overall pleasurable experience.

The Leaf is fun to drive. The Leaf 2 is also fun, both feel like completely ordinary cars. Perfectly good driving experience. Preferable to gasoline cars, I would say. But the Tesla 3 is even more fun to drive, and feels like a more luxurious and relaxed experience, with many annoyances that you didn't know you cared about, removed.

Just to list some that are obvious: Nissan are terrible at software and UX. The screen reacts slowly, with low FPS, does counterintuitive things and is confusing. The gear indicator light cannot be read in direct sunlight. The motor makes a high-frequency sound when accelerating, even from a standstill. The charge lid must be closed manually if you open it by mistake. The instrument panel is cluttered and unintentionally visually stressful, in the way almost all cars' are. Handling is subtly less pleasant in all conditions. Acceleration is not as powerful, and somehow feels less controlled and more jerky, even at low speeds.

Contrasting with the Tesla: Regenerative breaking when letting up the gas feels more subtle. Suspension feels less wobbly. The accelerator doesn't cause a jerking feeling unless you want it to. Can get you up to the required speed faster than you'll know how to make use of, unless you've deliberately practiced that kind of performance driving. The screen software is more intuitive. Has high FPS, reacts instantly. Visually much more peaceful, minimalistic, beautiful. Ditto for the interior design. Speed indicator manages to be at the exact correct spot in your field of view, somehow encouraging you to look out the front window more and keep attention on the road. The panoramic glass roof is just so peaceful if you stop somewhere to enjoy the scenery.

There's stuff to be annoyed at with the Tesla too, there's room for improvement many places. The collision avoidance warnings in particular felt too loose to me, and the sometimes-inconsistent placement and interpretation of the traffic around you on the display doesn't inspire confidence wrt. self-driving. (Although, the fact that it's there at all is pretty cool though, it's fascinating to see the streaming output of a neural network vision system in a real product. It's obvious that Tesla is building this system from real-world usage data and the progress will be fascinating to follow).

Overall, it's a much more pleasant experience, IMHO. I recommend you get a couple of hours to test-drive and see if you agree, or if I'm just caught up with a weird case of the fanboyism.

pi-rat explained my comments about charging while on the road better than I could. The key point is terrible and inconsistent user experience among other vendors. And I've seen examples of people plain being unable to charge at the single charger that's available. Not a fun thing to worry about when 40 miles from home at low battery.

bitexploder• 7 years ago

I own a Model 3 Performance. I have owned a lot of muscle cars and legitimate sports cars that cost a lot more than the Model 3 over the years. I could have comfortably bought a Model S with the best performance package (costing twice as much and going a bit faster than M3 Performance), but I picked the Model 3. It is hands down the best performance car I have ever owned for day to day driving. There is little difference between my Model 3 and the base level ones in terms of drive feel. They are amazing cars for day to day driving scenarios. When a car is just more fun to drive than high end Porsche or tricked out muscle cars it’s just a good car. Model 3 has its warts, but they don’t really impact the driving experience IMO.

kmlx• 7 years ago

1. 100% taxes on petrol cars

2. no VAT on electric cars

3. average income of $3500 in Oslo, one of the highest in the EU

4. total population of 5 million, less than Denmark, less than the city of Hong Kong

considering these facts i would say it is a bit surprising they didn't sell more than they did. but still great to see those number.

phaemon• 7 years ago

On point 3: Norway isn't in the EU.

On point 4: what does the population have to do with it? If they had a population of 50 million, would that negate points 1-3 in some way? Another way of describing their population might be, "roughly the same size as the average US state".

lifeisstillgood• 7 years ago

In the UK company car market, Tesla 3 seems be making a smash for similar reasons - a friend currently pays almost 6k in tax on their car - but is changing their fleet to Tesla's - and that 6k cost vanishes for same price to the company - effectively a 6k salary hike.

That will make a huge difference if marketed right.

segmondy• 7 years ago

It's actually interesting that there's no major American car in that list. Not even Bolt or Volt. :-/ Might not be much of a signal, but might be that the big 3 have really missed the road on EV.

new_realist• 7 years ago

Tesla sales in Norway are down quarter over quarter. See http://eu-evs.com.

Tesla Model 3 accounted for over 12% of Norwegian auto market in Jan-July

Related Stories