What we come back to is the very high sale taxes on new cars in Norway (our "rule of thumb" is that cars are close to twice as expensive in Norway as in some other countries), but that most(/all?) of those taxes are waived for electric. So the alternative to getting, e.g., a Tesla is paying almost twice as much for a "similar" BMW. Same story for lower-end cars.
Also, on the commuter high-ways leading in to Oslo, there's one lane that's reserved for bus+taxi+electric (similar to the 2+ or 3+ person-per-car lanes in California). There's a joke that there's a standing queue of Teslas in that lane now (though I don't drive there so I haven't seen how much of an exaggeration that is).
Also, electric don't pay on the toll roads, which saves you 3-4$ each time if you're living outside towns and commuting in.
For example, in California, typical petrol prices are around $0.85/L ($3.20/gal), and residential electricity prices are around $0.17/kWh. So you get about 5 kWh of electricity for the cost of a liter of petrol. Meanwhile in Norway, typical petrol prices are around $2.45/L ($9.25/gal), and residential electricity prices are around $0.25/kWh. So you get about 10 kWh of electricity for the cost of a liter of petrol.
edit: Actually might be an even bigger ratio. I was getting the Norwegian retail price of $0.25/kWh from Eurostat [1], but Statistics Norway gives a price of only $0.14/kWh [2]. Which would make for nearly 18 kWh for the cost of a L of petrol, 3-4x better ratio than in California.
[1] http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index....
According to Wikipedia¹ the energy of gasoline is ≈11.8 kWh/kg at a density of ≈0.74 kg/l, giving us 8.7 kWh/l. For California, using the $0.85/l price, we get $0.10/kWh (rounded from $0.09770) for gasoline. Norway, at $2.45/l, gives us $0.28/kWh.
It is about getting 400+ hp at family barge prices.
(And that is okay by me. We need more people to drive electric cars so we can evolve and develop them. And Norway is a great place to do that because of the hostile climate and the even more hostile politicians and their medieval ideas of what constitutes a "road")
edit: link for reference http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/gas-prices/20133:Norway
Sweden Norway
Audi A4 33 269 64 843
Tesla S 70 798 55 682
How do people feel being a top oil exporter and doing green policies/laws internally?
And you know the old saying - don't get high on your own supply..
The cycle has started and showing good signs.
I believe, if the same support is replicated across the world, it is very much possible we may witness electric automobiles a very viable alternative within next 10 years.
As a Canadian I can't see a Tesla being of any use in the winter, do people talk about that?
You out West? I've heard they don't salt out there, which makes all the difference.
Seriously, everybody was all for saving the world from global cataclysm until we found out it would be expensive and inconvenient.
My educated guess is that the vast majority of EVs are bought and driven in the larger Oslo area, and if I'm right, I think we actually should be discussing Oslo and not Norway as a country.
Edit: Reorganized two words.
I live in NYC. I was thinking specifically of the air quality in NYC which its almost sure to improve, rather than total pollution.
However, I think it will improve total pollution as well. I'm fairly certain that natural gas fired combined cycle generation (which is most of the new generation being added) is both more efficient and lower polluting than the internal combustion engine, so total pollution should decrease.
Also, a move to a less polluting industry is more than the sum of the direct effects; you must also consider research and momentum - as more electric cars are built, solar power and battery efficiency will also improve. If you take the opinion that an electric car is the same as a gas car because at some point they both pollute, you'll never make any progress anywhere.