How Norway Built an EV Utopia While the US Is Struggling to Go Electric

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5DbRyeZNRk

by outrun86 • 2 years ago

21 76 2 years ago

superkuh• 2 years ago

Be a physically small country and have your entire (EV using) population arranged along the coasts using the same few roads and infrastructure (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Norway_p...).

arcade7913• 2 years ago

It occurs to me that you have no clue when it comes to distances in Norway.

Minneapolis to Houston is a 1176 miles drive. Lindesnes to Nordkapp is a 1305 miles drive.

cpgxiii• 2 years ago

While Norway is a very long country, the actual areas amenable to settlement and population density are relatively small. Population is overwhelmingly concentrated in a few metro areas in the southern third of the country, and the long northern section is much more sparsely populated.

personalityson2• 2 years ago

North to south in Norway = Norway to Italy

qwytw9• 2 years ago

physically small country

That's not exactly true at all relative to population. Sure most of the north is very sparsely inhabited so not that relevant but even the southern coast is not at all dense (compare it with the East and West coasts in the US).

And then you have the fjords and mountains which further increase the distances and make infrastructure a lot more expensive.

kmlx3• 2 years ago

there’s 5.5 million people in the whole of norway. what are we talking about?

arcade7913• 2 years ago

What's your point? We've got a lower population density than the US.

kmlx3• 2 years ago

it’s tiny. it’s like comparing a village of hundreds to a metropolis like tokyo/nyc/london.

totally different problems/solutions. there is no equivalence, there is almost nothing in common between the two.

norway should be compared to it’s geo and cultural neighbours, sweden and finland.

audunw6• 2 years ago

Sure, if you’ve got 10x the population you’ve got maybe ~10x the area and 10x more stuff to build. But you’ve also got ~10x the amount of capital and 10x the amount of labour.

So how is this a valid argument?

Maybe this is an excuse for some areas with extreme high population density… something Norway certainly doesn’t have. But then those cities (say New York) generally have public transportation to take some of the load off.

It’s not an excuse for, say Portland or Seattle, that looks very similar to the Oslo metropolitan area. And you can just repeat that argument for every medium density 1-5 million population metropolitan area in USA.

kmlx3• 2 years ago

i made the point further down below. shall we compare nyc to a village in italy? we can, but there is literally nothing in common, everything is completely different.

you can compare norway to sweden and finland. or the US to canada.

rad_gruchalski10• 2 years ago

Every time Norway comes up as an example… there are 5.5m people in Norway vs 334m in the USA.

pfdietz2• 2 years ago

Can you explain the logic behind this attempt at an excuse?

rad_gruchalski10• 2 years ago

Sure. Norway sits at massine natgas and oil reserves. Hundreds of billions in savings, small population, small area with most of the population around a coast make it easy to transition fast.

pavlov3• 2 years ago

The average U.S. state is roughly the size of Norway.

So if you prefer, the question could be why not a single American state is anywhere near Norway in the EV transition.

rad_gruchalski10• 2 years ago

No clue. You guys like big things? Cybertruck and Hummer ev come to mind.

rcruzeiro• 2 years ago

Are you talking about size? Because if you are, that’s not really accurate. Norway might not be huge when you compare it to an entire continent, but it’s definitely not small. Plus, it’s got way more geographical challenges than your average US state.

bluejekyll4• 2 years ago

One thing to point out is that different areas of the US are doing better and worse on a lot of things. This is a good example. It would be better to look at the different metropolises of the US when talking about various things like ev adoption, bike usage, etc. We have many areas of the US that have similar density to that of Norway.

kjkjadksj2• 2 years ago

Even then its hard to compare to europe because US metros are so much larger in population and size. Oslo has a smaller population than Columbus, Ohio which isn’t even a large or very significant city. It ends up being an apples to oranges comparison unless you subset an area of the US that has a similar population density and demography as a similarly sized area in Europe, and no one does that because that means splitting metros into weird pieces that people find harder to think about than “city x vs city y.”

arcade7913• 2 years ago

Yes. You've got Nebraska, Idaho, Nevada and Kansas! THey all have a lower population density than Norway! Therefore the other states don't need to bother..

EDIT: Ugh, thinking, typing and using a search engine. The above is wrong. They all have a higher population density than Norway. The following states have a lower population density:

Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota

The argument stands, but the list of states was wrong. ;)

pokstad• 2 years ago

The size of the USA is a better argument. Infrastructure needs to spread to cover the populated areas which are huge.

arcade7913• 2 years ago

Population density of the US is ~5 times higher than in Norway. The distance between Lindesnes and Nordkapp is greater than the distance between Minneapolis and Houston.

arcade7913• 2 years ago

Yes, but the population density of the US is ~5 times greater than Norway, so this isn't really an argument.

qwytw9• 2 years ago

Doesen't that just reinforce their point? Small population and large area (with a lot of mountains) allows them to generate most of their electricity supply from cheap/clean hydro.

Also they have very high revenue per person from oil sales.

plasticchris2• 2 years ago

Totally. The entire country would be a midsize state in the US.

Thinking about it I’m not totally sure so I looked up Norway’s size and population density, which seems to most closely match Kansas (37/mi^2 vs 35.9 for KS) and the land area of KS is a bit less than half, so it seems two kansases is a decent approximation for Norway, ignoring the coast/shape, just for a sense of scale. Of course Norway has a 1.5T fund and maybe they spend more? Figuring the per capita budget for both they are pretty close, so apart from cultural and topographical differences this seems like a pretty close fit.

arcade7913• 2 years ago

Except you should look at the shape of the country. And the fact that we don't spend much out of that fund.

Hint. Minneapolis to Houston is a shorter distance than Lindesnes to Nordkapp

belval• 2 years ago

1. Have a large amount of oil & gas comparatively to your population

2. Sell the oil and gas to Europe

3. Use the money to finance the Utopia

I don't want to be too cynical, what Norway is doing is great, but I feel like whenever a case study comes up about why something works, ultimately it boils down to "money".

We can go full reductio ad absurdum and write "How Norway Built a free healthcare Utopia While Ethiopia is struggling".

arcade7913• 2 years ago

It has to be mentioned that Norway spends most of it's petromoney on the Pension Fund. We've got a rule that the government at most can touch 4% of that for whatever they want to do - but they keep it around 2-3% .

mrits2• 2 years ago

Even then it should be compared to a city in the US as they would sometimes not even be a top 10 by metroplex population

rad_gruchalski10• 2 years ago

So how much do people of Norway have to save up from their income for their pension?

personalityson2• 2 years ago

4. 95% of electricity is from hydropower

ta8645• 2 years ago

Just to be clear, 95% of electricity in Norway is from hydro. Not 4.95%

masklinn• 2 years ago

That's by far the biggest consideration, most likely. Having a ton of hydro is a godsend: you have extreme amounts of energy, but it's hard to export so you can't really hit the resource curse. It can still be a bit of a factor (because high-electricity business e.g. aluminium smelters) but nowhere near as bad as oil/gas.

freitzkriesler22• 2 years ago

Also things these silly America sucks conparisons convenientlh forget:

1.The US is a republic of mini countries or states.

2. Norway is roughly the size of new england.

3. Norway has 5.4 million people vs America's 330 or 340 million

prepend• 2 years ago

I guess having your whole economy pretty wealthy based on fossil fuels and relying on US innovation in developing EV infrastructure helps.

This kind of reminds me of those “I’m debt free and have $500k savings at 25” type posts where the secret is having rich parents who pay for your college, network you into a good job, live at home and pay all expenses so 100% of salary goes into savings.

I mean, it’s cool for the poster, but I’m not sure how any of that is generalizable to me. Or to countries other than Norway. I don’t see Liberia or Oman (similar populations) drawing too many useful ideas from Norway.

kurthr• 2 years ago

I agree with you, but it does show that having a competent government can make amazing things possible, and having a dysfunctional one with massive corruption makes it impossible. Not Liberia or Oman, but Nigeria, Angola, and Uganda have the resources to do something similar.

zeroonetwothree• 2 years ago

Just because the US isn’t #1 at something doesn’t mean it’s “news”.

colechristensen• 2 years ago

Be a rich country, have a 25% tax on cars, discount that to 0% for the first ~$50,000 of EVs, be small so electric infrastructure is easy. Have good public transit so if you’re poor you don’t need a car.

arcade7913• 2 years ago

Norway is not small (distance-wise). But we do have electricity production pretty well spread out as we're a mountainous country with plenty of hydropower throughout the entire country.

kjkjadksj2• 2 years ago

The last line is probably only true for oslo. Its a big country with a low population density so I expect most poor rural areas don’t have much to offer. That being said if you are poor you aren’t buying new cars anyhow.

audunw6• 2 years ago

Electric infrastructure is not easy in Norway. You know it’s very mountainous.. right?

But Norway does have the benefit that it has relied on electricity for much of its heating for a long time. So the added load of EVs is not huge relatively speaking.

Though the surprising thing is just how easy it has been. There’s no reason to think it’d be insurmountable for other countries. We have the same rules of physics here.

pytonslange• 2 years ago

It was actually much better than that. The 25% is just the VAT. In addition there is a tax on new cars (fossil and hybrid) with elements for weight, emissions, and before 2017 also power. EVs were initially excempt all taxes, meaning you pretty much get more than twice as much car when chosing an EV. Combine that with no charge for EVs on toll roads (which are abundant here), rather expensive fossil fuels and cheap electricity, and you get a lot of EVs on the road. Great for the local environment, maybe not so great for the climate.

KingOfCoders• 2 years ago

In Norway electricity is ridiculously cheap.

arcade7913• 2 years ago

This used to be true until we joined ACER and built a couple more electric cables. It hasn't been true since about 2021.

audunw6• 2 years ago

Please don’t repeat the misconception that ACER has anything to do with electricity prices. Norway built plenty of cables before ACER and would have built the exact same cables without it. It’s a complete myth that ACER has anything to do with Norway building more interconnect cables. It has been an explicit energy policy of Norway to be well connected to neighbours because Norway relies on hydro power. And hydro power is unpredictable. There are dry years.

Average prices are still pretty damn low. Some periods of high electricity prices during an energy crisis and dry year does not mean Norway has expensive electricity in general.

hbarka• 2 years ago

It’s because of Bjorn Nyland. He evangelized EVs in Norway and ten years later here we are. What a difference a decade makes, just like what smartphones did to Nokia.

bluejekyll4• 2 years ago

One negative thing to point out is that Norway’s policies on the EV are increasing the number of cars on the road (this is stated in the video). People are opting to drive more often than they did before to places that they otherwise would have taking public transit.

It makes me wonder if reducing the guilt around car usage has an effect of increasing its usage. People may think of EV car usage as nearly zero cost (hidden in your electric bill), and zero impact on the environment (ignoring the other pollutants that EV cars have, mainly microplastics from tires). It’s an interesting side effect of Norway’s policies.

freitzkriesler22• 2 years ago

I'm of the unpopular opinion that buses should be closed and ride sharing should fill the gap to connect people to light/heavy rail.

audunw6• 2 years ago

Do you have a source for that claim? Norwegian statistics does not agree with you here:

https://www.ssb.no/transport-og-reiseliv/landtransport/stati...

https://www.dagsavisen.no/nyheter/2023/06/30/gjennomsnittlig....

Cars seem to be driven less, per person, not more.

Population is increasing. So maybe there are more cars on the road in total? But that’s a a nearly irrelevant measure in this discussion.

It also goes directly against my personal experience, and the policies in the big cities makes it nearly impossible to drive more.

Our companies moved to a new office, and that office was built without any attached parking. I don’t think you’re allowed to build new building with lots of parking in the city centre anymore. We have some parking spots in a nearby parking garage but it’s a 5min walk away. Meanwhile there’s a brand new huge bike garage in the new building. With bike repair and bike washing equipment. I didn’t use to bike to work, it’s a bit on the long side at 30min each way. But I have started doing it after I got an E-bike. Many coworkers do the same. Young coworkers seem to delay buying their first car longer than I did. Many even bike in winter (I’m not there yet)

Traffic on the highway is also not getting worse. It’s actually been fairly smooth ever since the pandemic. I suspect an increase in home office has helped, along with the gradual shift towards more biking and public transportation.

bluejekyll4• 2 years ago

It’s stated in the video, I didn’t look up the data. Which means the video is wrong.

dzhiurgis• 2 years ago

Do buses have no microplastic pollution? How about road damage they cause?

How Norway Built an EV Utopia While the US Is Struggling to Go Electric

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