This what happens when a basic sedan like a Volkswagen Passat plug-in starts at 450,000 NOK ($54,000), once you add even basic customization, fees and all the rest the on the road cost of a mid range sedan could be as much as Tesla 75d, since many Teslas come to Norway as secondary imports there are plenty of “refurbished” Model S 60d’s for less than that.
Don’t get me wrong it’s neat that this is the case but this is an anomaly which both isn’t “right” and not applicable to most places.
Norway has effectively a luxury tax of 100% on cars and it can go higher than that based on the rediculous EU pollution score.
Why ridiculous? After all, it's been put in place for the express purpose of reducing greenhouse gas emissions [1], and at least in Norway it seems to be effective.
Because it didn’t, it was hugely biased against CO2 emissions only which allowed the European favored Diesel engines to appear much less polluting.
On top of that the policy focused heavily on engine “size” which again favored Diesel engines and vehicle weight which effectively screwed over early plugin hybrids and currently screws over large families and luxury cars.
The weight and capacity policy has also been abused to make luxury and performance cars considerably more expensive despite being more economical and less polluting at road speeds.
Because the policy doesn’t take into account actual fuel consumption and emissions.
The BMW 520d has a combined MPG of 72 and 79 road, it’s still at a higher category than many less efficient cars simply because of how the policy is structured.
For gasoline engines specifically you’ll also find that many performance cars do offer higher efficiency at road speeds than your sluggish 1.8L minivan.
The funny thing is, if there’s a country that practically would adopt electric cars last, it would be Norway. It’s got large distances and low prevailing temperatures, neither of which are favourable to electric cars.
That’s how it would go if countries were equal. However, Norway’s a fairly enlightened and forward thinking place, so politically it’s not surprising they’re way ahead of the curve.
Nothing to do with being forward thinking it’s about money.
When you can buy a Tesla for the same price or cheaper and a bloody Volkswagen Passat you are going to buy a Tesla.
The Passat which in the US would cost you $20,000 has an on road price which starts at around $60,000 in Norway and most versions would cost you $70-75K.
It discourages ownership of any vehicle, it just affects EVs currently less.
Norway didn’t implement those policies to encourage EVs due to how the laws and regulations were structured they just sliped through, and this won’t last for much longer there has been quite a bit of talk of closing some of the loopholes and cutting some of the subsidies.
Nope, EVs are not cheap by design for the most part they are cheap by loopholes.
Norway treats cars as luxury items and taxes them accordingly with 100% or higher import taxes and considerable overall road tax.
This isn’t that different than some other EU countries but the combination of an asinine taxation policy and a handful of incentives created a situation where cheap cars cost a fortune, where luxury cars are effectively a skin job but some EVs despite being a luxury item slip through.
Norway is already planning to cut many incentive and like many other EU countries tax EVs on a KW/h basis as well as their weight and class just like ICE cars are taxed today.
This would mean that the price and TCO of Tesla would increase to the level of other similarly priced cars in Norway which by 2020 should put a $100,000 US Tesla Model whatever in the $250-300K range in Norway just like the $22,000 cars costing $60000.
Cheaper EVs like the Leaf and Model 3 should remain affordable, at least to what Norwegians have been forced to call affordable.
This is a repeat of a prior Tesla publicity stunt. What they do is they only ship cars to Norway quarterly, and by filling a big backlog of orders they then claim to be the most popular make in that month, which is technically true but also quite silly. You can clearly see on the graph in the article that the reason Tesla "sold" a ton of cars in September is because it sold almost none in August and July prior. And Tesla has been pumping this PR trick for at least four years.
I think this says more about Tesla's bizarre production and delivery schedules than it says about the automobile market in Norway.
Well, not really. The hefty taxes on ICEs have been there always to provide income for the state, they were not introduced to internalize any environmental effects. In particular this holds for the 25% VAT which EVs get to skip, which you otherwise pay on anything from bubblegum to burglary alarms.
The thing that irks me about this subsidy (or whatever you call it) is how ineffective it is. Something like $5000 per tonne CO2 avoided, if uou make some optimistic assumptions, which is 50-100x more expensive than most sensible emissions reduction methods. Adding insult to injury, total emissions from cars are growing, i.e. EVs lead to people driving more in total, not driving less in ICE cars. It's just greenwashing, pure and simple.
Genuinely curious why you assume this is a PR stunt vs. say, a logistics related thing. The effects of such a PR stunt are likely negligible vs. potentially losing out on hundreds or thousands of sales due to long and unnecessary waiting times.
> The effects of such a PR stunt are likely negligible
Marketing is most likely the most important thing for new products nowadays. Quality becomes secondary if your target group thinks they get the best even though they don't.
In Oslo people complain that rich people in suburbs get Tesla just to avoid traffic jams and use public transport lines that electrical cars can also use. Yet for less fortunate folks who needs a family car non-electric cars are still the only option money wise.
In principle they have a point. As battery is still extremely expensive it is cheaper to make a plugin hybrid that can drive like 50 kilometers on a battery and uses small engine to get a bigger range. In practical usage such car will be 95% electric yet cheaper than pure electric with range of, say, 300 km. Yet in Norway only electrical cars have zero taxes. The tax insensitives for plugins are relatively minor and do not compensate for price increase due to more complex power train. So people looking for a bigger family car often get a gasoline or disel car.
HDD is still much cheaper than SSD. The same is with ICE cars that have 100 years to perfect manufacturing. I guess in 10 years battery will be cheap enough to end the ICE age, but at this technological point small ICE + small battery looks like the cheapest solution.
I do not count on any scientific breakthrough. The current batteries are good enough for cars. It is just too expensive to make them. But most of the price is not inherent in the technology, but rather in expensive specialized tools. Economy of scale should fix this.
Most cost goes to nickel, cobalt, manganese and other similar metals.
Increasing mining capacity can reduce the cost significantly. In very far future tho, most of it is probably going to be all recycled, but thats like 50 years ahead.
40 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 91.7 ms ] threadDon’t get me wrong it’s neat that this is the case but this is an anomaly which both isn’t “right” and not applicable to most places.
Norway has effectively a luxury tax of 100% on cars and it can go higher than that based on the rediculous EU pollution score.
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/vehicles/cars_...
On top of that the policy focused heavily on engine “size” which again favored Diesel engines and vehicle weight which effectively screwed over early plugin hybrids and currently screws over large families and luxury cars.
The weight and capacity policy has also been abused to make luxury and performance cars considerably more expensive despite being more economical and less polluting at road speeds.
The BMW 520d has a combined MPG of 72 and 79 road, it’s still at a higher category than many less efficient cars simply because of how the policy is structured.
For gasoline engines specifically you’ll also find that many performance cars do offer higher efficiency at road speeds than your sluggish 1.8L minivan.
That’s how it would go if countries were equal. However, Norway’s a fairly enlightened and forward thinking place, so politically it’s not surprising they’re way ahead of the curve.
When you can buy a Tesla for the same price or cheaper and a bloody Volkswagen Passat you are going to buy a Tesla.
The Passat which in the US would cost you $20,000 has an on road price which starts at around $60,000 in Norway and most versions would cost you $70-75K.
Norway treats cars as luxury items and taxes them accordingly with 100% or higher import taxes and considerable overall road tax.
This isn’t that different than some other EU countries but the combination of an asinine taxation policy and a handful of incentives created a situation where cheap cars cost a fortune, where luxury cars are effectively a skin job but some EVs despite being a luxury item slip through.
Norway is already planning to cut many incentive and like many other EU countries tax EVs on a KW/h basis as well as their weight and class just like ICE cars are taxed today.
This would mean that the price and TCO of Tesla would increase to the level of other similarly priced cars in Norway which by 2020 should put a $100,000 US Tesla Model whatever in the $250-300K range in Norway just like the $22,000 cars costing $60000.
Cheaper EVs like the Leaf and Model 3 should remain affordable, at least to what Norwegians have been forced to call affordable.
If you live in a country where you don't drive your car outside your county (sligth exaggeration there), there's no need for fossil fuel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_N...
I think this says more about Tesla's bizarre production and delivery schedules than it says about the automobile market in Norway.
The thing that irks me about this subsidy (or whatever you call it) is how ineffective it is. Something like $5000 per tonne CO2 avoided, if uou make some optimistic assumptions, which is 50-100x more expensive than most sensible emissions reduction methods. Adding insult to injury, total emissions from cars are growing, i.e. EVs lead to people driving more in total, not driving less in ICE cars. It's just greenwashing, pure and simple.
Marketing is most likely the most important thing for new products nowadays. Quality becomes secondary if your target group thinks they get the best even though they don't.
https://www.ft.com/content/fe6b79d4-af31-11e7-aab9-abaa44b1e...
Once Norway drops the tax advantages for EVs which is projected to happen somewhere past 2020 likely they'll be back to 'normal' quite quickly.
Also, this is for new sales, the bulk of the fleet is still ICE's (68%), with the majority made up by VW, Toyota and Volvo.
In principle they have a point. As battery is still extremely expensive it is cheaper to make a plugin hybrid that can drive like 50 kilometers on a battery and uses small engine to get a bigger range. In practical usage such car will be 95% electric yet cheaper than pure electric with range of, say, 300 km. Yet in Norway only electrical cars have zero taxes. The tax insensitives for plugins are relatively minor and do not compensate for price increase due to more complex power train. So people looking for a bigger family car often get a gasoline or disel car.
It’s a bit like CRT vs LCD or HDD vs SSD. Eventually the reduced complexity or even weight of raw components are cheaper than counterparts.
Lithium isn't semiconductor engineering where every generation you double the density yearly (even that stopped long time ago).
Planning current policies on future scientific discovered usually doesn't end up as planned.
Increasing mining capacity can reduce the cost significantly. In very far future tho, most of it is probably going to be all recycled, but thats like 50 years ahead.