I doubt there are many outside of Norway that know that the Norwegian pop group A-ha was critical in the introduction of electric car incentives in Norway. I certainly didn't. Read on...
In 1989, two members of the group, Morten Harket and Magne Furuholmen were in Switzerland with environmentalist Frederic Hauge, when they came across a hobby-converted Fiat Panda. Stated range: 45 km. They snapped it up and imported it to Norway.
Photo: In Switzerland (Bellona)
On arrival in Norway, the regs didn't accommodate the registration of electric cars so it couldn't legally be driven on the road. Since it had a propane-fuelled heater, just like a motorhome, they registered it as a motorhome.
Moreover, in contrast to petrol cars, diesel cars paid registration fees based on how far they were driven, and our heroes thought this should also apply to electric cars. So the two-seater Swiss-converted Fiat Panda was registered as a diesel motorhome in Norway.
They managed (somehow) to avoid paying the one-off registration fee in 1990, and ever since then electric cars have been exempted this now-substantial fee.
Source: toi.no/getfile.php?mm…
They were unhappy with "disincentives" to owning an electric car, including road tolls. So they drove repeatedly through toll stations without paying. Every time, they received a fine, which they didn't pay. According to the rules, the car was then confiscated.
Photo: Bellona.
When confiscated, the car was auctioned, but since no-one else wanted to buy the car, only our heroes were at the auction to buy it back again. They they drove without paying tolls, car confiscated again, car auctioned again, bought back again... and this went on, and on, and on.
The fine was 300 Norwegian crowns each time, and they bought the car back each time for 200 Norwegian crowns (i.e., for less than the fine).
Finally, in 1996, the team had their way and electric cars were exempted from paying road tolls, the star power of A-ha helping along the way. Presumably the government just gave up, since exempting one car wasn't going to break the bank.
These early efforts were important in the long process (starting with the oil crises in the 1970s) of developing interest in electric cars in Norway, from a few individuals through to 2020's extraordinary record 54% of all new cars sold being battery-electric.
For more on the historical of electric cars in Norway from the 1970s, check out TØI's report here (in Norwegian). toi.no/getfile.php?mm…
Note that while some sources say that the converted Fiat Panda was in 1989 the first electric car in Norway, the history goes a bit further back. tu.no/artikler/norge…
If anyone is looking for a better source than Twitter for this story (that means you, journalists), you could try this article by Harald Røstvik, who was instrumental in these events. It's paywalled, but I'm sure the author would be happy to send it to you doi.org/10.1080/000386…
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Why does Norway say it doesn't need any plan to reduce oil and gas extraction? Because the 'expectation' is there will be a substantial decline in production.
But the Petroleum Directorate that produced these scenarios says that if we try harder, we can have higher production. 1/
In their report the Directorate says:
"Purposeful technology development, players willing to invest and successful exploration can increase opportunities for maintaining both production volumes and revenues at high levels." 2/ npd.no/en/whats-new/p…
The Petroleum Directorate is interested in maintaining oil production, and their position is that if we try harder then we can extract much more of the remaining oil and gas resources. 3/
There's a bit of noise about ClimateTrace, a really nice dataset produced by a large collaboration of scientists. Facility-level emissions, over the whole world! Satellites see everything, and AI does all the work! I want here to look at a single case to open a window onto this.
But note: I'm not here to say CT is *wrong*. This is just one example.
So ClimateTrace says that Langøya, a solid-waste disposal site south of Oslo, Norway, emitted 280 thousand tonnes of methane (measured in CO₂e) in 2022. Quite a lot. But let's step back: why do landfill sites emit methane?
📢Today the Global Carbon Project releases its 2023 edition of the Global Carbon Budget, a comprehensive assessment of our perturbation of the carbon cycle and the balance of sources and sinks of CO₂. 1/🧵
The numbers that make the headlines are what is happening this year. It looks like fossil CO₂ emissions will increase by about 1%, but that obviously comes with quite a lot of uncertainty as a lot can happen in the final months of the year, and data are far from complete. 2/
That round 1% is made up of a lot of different things going on. We make projections for the four largest emitters and the rest of world separately. This year we have introduced a separate projection of international transport, since aviation has diverged in recent years. 3/
The start of safety testing in Europe in late 1996 led to significant efforts by manufacturers to produce safer cars, and some of that extra safety meant extra weight. This probably drove most of the weight trend until 2007.
The CO₂-intensity component of the car registration tax, introduced in January 2007, introduced a counter-balancing driver.
This component was increased every year. Note in the unsmoothed data how there's a blip every December: the rush to beat higher taxes.
The new weight component of the registration tax for hybrids introduced January 202 had a very clear effect, with the average weight dropping >100 kg.
This was also introduced for BEVs this year, but it's a little early to tell what effect this will have.
Norway is known for having a large share of electric cars on its roads, currently over 21%. Do they catch fire more often than ICE cars? Not according to data from the Norwegian authorities.
The Norwegian fire service has developed routines for handling battery fires in EVs. But they say that it's rare for the battery to be damaged sufficiently to lead to fire. "The battery pack is the strongest part of the car." elbil.no/elbiler-er-lan…
The Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection and Emergency Planning (DSB) says "We see that when EVs burn, they most often burn in the interior and plastic, and seldom in the battery." motor.no/aktuelt/elbile…