Norway is the world leader in EV sales, but now it’s crossed a new landmark: the first country with more EVs than gas cars in service.
Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20240915025331/https://electrek.co/2024/09/14/there-are-now-more-electric-cars-than-gas-cars-on-norways-roads/
I’m curious how well they handle the colder temperatures.
Very well. It’s much more enjoyable to own an electric vehicle in colder climates than a gas/diesel powered one actually, since you can let it heat up and defrost completely before going anywhere.
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a60344222/does-an-ev-work-as-well-in-cold-weather/
Interesting. I’ve always heard the usual complaints of EVs being harder to start from cold temps and the battery not lasting as long when it’s cold.
Harder to start? That sounds extremely weird - it’s electric :D I’ve never had such issues (Sweden, on my second EV) while ignition when really cold has always been problematic with my gas/diesel cars.
Range goes down, yes. That’s true also for gas/diesel cars, but when the range is good enough we tend not to notice/care. My previous EV (Tesla Model 3 SR+) had lousy range both summer and winter (Tesla lies about their range) but in the winter it was indeed painful.
The current one (VW ID.7) has about double the range and also performs as stated. I expect a 20% drop in range in the winter and that’s just fine.
This is good to know. Sweden’s climate is very close to where I live in the US (a little colder I think) and I know I’ve always thought the tech wasn’t there yet for places that actually have 4 seasons.
Is it true it draws power to keep the battery warm when parked, and if so is it significant?
Some models do precondition the battery. Of those that do, if you leave the vehicle unattended for months you would notice the drain. Not over a few days though, the power drain is negligible compared to what’s needed to drive, or the increased range loss of a colder battery.
To put things in perspective: The average consumer EV can drive for 3–4 hours, but can power an entire household (including appliances) for 2 days.
I haven’t owned it through winter (no ID.7 owner has tbh) but I don’t expect that to be an issue. It will only heat the battery if you schedule departure times.
I’ve noticed no battery drain with the car parked otherwise.
I meant EVs in general, I don’t know much about them.
That’s good to hear, thanks
Ahh then I might know where it comes from. People who use Tesla’s Sentry mode don’t realize that it uses up several percent per night. Now, it does turn off automatically when the battery is at 20% but I know people who parked at an airport and didn’t have charge enough to get home when they got back because of this.
That’s part of the disinformation campaign against competition for legacy auto and gas. There is a lot of money going into telling you the new option is worse…
That’s fair. IMO though, the worst part are these half-assed OSes with OTA updates and software locked hardware.
When I need a new vehicle, I’d like to go electric but I haven’t seen one that really like yet.
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It’s a mixed bag imo. Don’t go on a long road trip in the cold…
I’ve been traveling all across the US in an EV and haven’t had any issues with range in the winter. Colorado mountains during ski season, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana in the spring. The built in navigation routes you to chargers based on current conditions and I’ve seen minimal range drop.
Battery capacity plummets when temperatures drop really low.
Also charging is a whole lot slower
Which EV do you have where this is an issue? The ones I’ve had pre-heat the battery to optimal charging temperatures.
Not dure if it’d the batteries or the charging stations. But I have a ds3 e-tense and during like, -10c ish is just a pain to charge.
You can even tell in the winter cus the queues to charge is just so long.
Yeah, I’d be a bit more excited if they weren’t making most of the money to pay for that by exporting vast amounts of oil and gas.
Norway is a rich country so the government can help people buy electric instead of gasoline cars. Of course, they got rich by selling oil, but yes.
They actually don’t use the fund to subsidize it. And many policies were added overtime, which any managed economy should be able to do.
The Norwegian EV incentives:
- No purchase/import tax on EVs (1990-2022). From 2023 some purchase tax based on the cars’ weight on all new EVs.
- Exemption from 25% VAT on purchase (2001-2022). From 2023, Norway will implement a 25% VAT on the purchase price from 500 000 Norwegian Kroner and over
- No annual road tax (1996-2021). Reduced tax from 2021. Full tax from 2022.
- No charges on toll roads (1997- 2017).
- No charges on ferries (2009- 2017).
- Maximum 50% of the total amount on ferry fares for electric vehicles (2018)
- Maximum 50% of the total amount on toll roads (2018-2022). From 2023 70%
- Free municipal parking (1999- 2017)
- Access to bus lanes (2005-). New rules allow local authorities to limit the access to only include EVs that carry one or more passengers (2016-)
- 25% reduced company car tax (2000-2008). 50% reduced company car tax (2009-2017). Company car tax reduction reduced to 40% (2018-2021) and 20 percent from 2022.
- Exemption from 25% VAT on leasing (2015-)
- The Norwegian Parliament decided on a national goal that all new cars sold by 2025 should be zero-emission (electric or hydrogen) (2017).
- «Charging right» for people living in apartment buildings was established (2017-)
- Public procurement: From 2022 cars needs to be ZEV. From 2025 the same applies to city buses
Meanwhile in Slovenia - here, have some subsidy for buying a new one and that’s all. Figure out yourself about charging, specially if you live in an apartment.
It’s no different in Sweden. While I’m on my second EV and will never go back I can’t motivate it for people who live in apartments. To be able to use an EV effectively you absolutely have to have your own charger to connect it to while home, and very few apartments have that possibility.
Norway has way more incentives compared to us, which is somewhat unusual between us Nordic countries.
Pretty much all apartment buildings built in Norway nowadays have ev chargers built into the parking lots / garages. With a lot being retrofitted as we speak.
Yea, I can envision public parking spots around apartments having slow chargers - 8kW something, so the cars can be charged over night for a similar price you have at home. However, that would required government motivation (wisdom) first and upgrade of electricity network which isn’t able to sustain such power. Neither is happening, not even plans. Our governments suck. Funny aspect is that Slovenia is a small country (2M population) and could serve as testing ground for such experiments. I won’t even mention basic income…
I know BC at least solved this problem a few years ago by just legally requiring landlords to provide L2 chargers when asked and suddenly EVs were very popular with apartment owners.
While L2 chargers are definitely the ideal for household charging, it’s worth noting for places with street parking and such that you absolutely can charge an EV overnight with an household outlet and an extension cord, At least you can if you’re not averageing more than 60 miles(100km) per day, and if you’re dependent on street parking you’re probably closer into town than that.
Ideally the government would institute a similar must provide L2 if asked for employees at places with electric service, as that would ensure that they could not only get 170miles (290km) during a 9-5 shift, but allow for bidirectional charging to actually help with bulk grid storage, or at least incentivize charging at times when solar is plentiful instead of at night where you’re going to be drawing from a grid scale battery or hydro resivor.
On the grid front, while electrification will require expansion of capacity, it is worth remembering that this is not a unprecedented surge in growth so much as a return to the normal rate of grid expansion after decades of austerity. Even in north america, with our sprawling suburbs built on long freeway car commutes, our average EV consumes less power than our average air conditioner does over the entire year.
Admittedly optimizing for grid distribution means charging overnight though, when all the infrastructure that feed those hungry air conditioners during the day is siting around with unused capacity, so the optimal mix will depend on whether upgrading distribution infrastructure is more expensive than upgrading grid storage infrastructure and nighttime generating capacity.
Or a work place with chargers.
No charges on ferries
And here EVs are essentially not allowed on ferries because they need to be < 40% charged to board and good luck finding a charger on an island.
And a lot of smart investment, see the UK for an example of a country that got a 50% share in the exact same oil fields and continues to run itself into the ground to pay oligarchs.
