Yes it’s true – the Liberal party in Norway are aiming to get rid of all petrol and diesel vehicles on their roads by 2025. Oh sorry – did you think I meant the Liberal party of Australia? Seriously?
No the Liberal party in Australia want to power all vehicles with ‘good for humanity’ coal by 2025 to justify the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, Liverpool Plains etc.
By 2025 of course China’s imports of Aussie coal will be highly diminished and India as an alternative market will be consuming it’s own coal reserves and rapidly expanding solar power. So Aussies will be expected to be patriotic and convert their vehicles to coal – well we got to keep the coal billionaires in the lifestyles they’re accustomed to after all. (Excuse the rant please readers but I’m sure you understand the frustration of seeing such visionary politics in Norway while we witness our current government set firmly in reverse).
“By 2025, it is entirely possible to fully eliminate cars that run on diesel and gas, and completely switch to ecological alternatives,” said Liberal Party member Ola Elvestuen, chair of the legislature’s Standing Committee on Energy and the Environment. Norway has more EVs per capita than any other nation and are positioned to run their EV fleet on virtually 100 percent renewable energy (97% hydro power).
In May 2014, 10.9% of all cars in Norway were electric – one year later than figure had increased to 15.5%. It is expected that next year about a quarter will be electric and by 2020 half the transport fleet. Oslo currently bans diesel vehicles from entering the city on certain days of the week with other cities in Norway to follow. The result of the uptake in EVs has seen a marked improvement in air quality in the cities.
Ironically the country with its massive sovereign wealth fund has been able to afford generous incentives to EV owners due to the riches generated from it’s oil and gas deposits. But Norway has committed to reduce it’s greenhouse emissions by 40% (from 1990 levels) over the next fifteen years and to do so they must eliminate the one third emissions created by their transport fleet.
It would have been a nice headline for Australia but (apart from Malcolm) I’m not sure anyone in the current government is even aware that cars can be run on electricity and the idea that they could be run from renewable energy would be abhorrent, anathema, odious, repugnant, offensive – a blight on the landscape!
Great site ..keep up the good work . we are promoting ev’s and solar charging in the local area
so far we have 2 homebuilt ev’s 2 local teslas, 1 holden volt and about six Mitsu PHev’s and look forward to the day I loose count.
thanks
Well, Norway already has 100,000 all-electric vehicles, and its not even the end of 2016. And now the goal is set to 400,000 all-electric vehicles till 2020, which means Norway is the country which everyone should look up to : http://www.carsdistrict.com/norway-becoming-global-leader-100000-electric-vehicles-milestone/
Many countries which have gone EV, are fairly compact. The USA, prior to the recent increase in EV interest had a big push for HYBRIDs and Plug-In hybrids (PHEV). Some people I’ve read who bought an EV in USA started with a PHEV, realised they could actually live with the range of an EV, so the PHEV was a stepping stone to EVs. And, they had Government encouragement to do so in quite a few states – cash subsidies, registration subsidies etc. Australia’s government has been silent on all of this.
Neither of those fit with Australia’s story. We have huge distances, largely uncovered by electric charging capability. There are some people who can use cars which are limited to city environs – an EV would make an ideal 2nd car (or 1st car depending on how you look on it) for many households.
But I think that if Australia can’t sell hybrids, we’ve no chance with EVs. But the hybrid is an ideal vehicle for most purposes in Australia. You can drive a Hybrid around Australia, on your camping trip or through the red centre. Then if it’s a Plug-In, you can drive it 100% on Solar power the rest of the year. Straight hybrids like my new PRIUS use amazingly little fuel and still seats 5 people in comfort.
In researching a PRIUS last year, almost every TOYOTA dealership I visited, the salesmen were uninterested in selling me a PRIUS – at least 3 said “why would you want one” – they couldn’t understand anyone wanting one when they had a yard-full of SUVs and or twin-cabs.
Hi Alan – Australia is lagging behind miserably. EVs and infrastructure are obvious to anyone travelling in Europe, China or North America but successive Australian governments have ignored the revolution that is happening across the globe. New Zealand are now far ahead of us in this respect also. However despite our great distances the reality is that the vast majority of people do not go for long distance drives and confine themselves to cities where EVs are ideal. You may be surprised that despite the lack of interest generally speaking in Australia there is now quite a bit of infrastructure in place – it surrounds the most of the Australian coast as can be seen from the plugshare map https://myelectriccar.com.au/charge-stations-in-australia
For Tesla owners fast charge stations are in place that makes it possible to drive from Adelaide to beyond Brisbane. Fast charge electric highways are in place now in Western Australia and soon to be in Queensland. I think the idea of huge distances is more a mindset than a reality of people’s driving habits. The vast majority of people rarely go on long drives. Having said that we know of at least one Nissan LEAF owner and three Tesla owners who have crossed the Nullarbor in their vehicles and that is a long drive. At MEC we view hybrids as an interim technology which have very positive benefits but will ultimately be replaced by pure electric.
Agree about the dealers – in Australia they have been resistant to change and try to push people interested in electrics to ICE vehicles. Despite this resistance the future will be electric vehicles.
Yes, I agree – mostly.
I guess a lot of people don’t leave the city too often, but my last 2 holidays (to Dubbo via Goondiwindi and to Carnarvon Gorge, and a work assignment to Longreach (all from Brisbane area) wouldn’t have worked with an EV – but are fine with a hybrid. I live alone, just retired, have plans for travel, so at this stage a pure EV wouldn’t work for me – I’d have loved a PHEV, but unless I get an AUDI or BMW, the only other option is the Mitsubishi Outlander truck PHEV.
But I look at ALL of the families in my street, they’ve got 2 cars, both with ICE – each one could easily have a pure EV. An EV is totally off their radar, though, and most have SOLAR panels on their roofs which would marry well with an EV.
I note that my local shopping centre (Logan) Hyperdome Shopping Centre has allocated 2 carparks “Electric Car Only” – with a TESLA charging outlet. (And it’s been empty every time I’ve gone there.) Not much use if you’ve got a LEAF or PHEV Mitsubishi. I certainly hope that we don’t end up with a string of charging points – I dread the thought of carparks marked “Nissan EV ONLY”, “GM BOLT EV ONLY”, :TOYOTA EV ONLY”, “VW EV ONLY” etc. Potential chaos?
Keep up the push – it’ll get there in time.