Norway is Europe's undisputed electric vehicle leader. It is also Europe's largest oil producer. The way these two facts intertwine is what The Globe And Mail calls "ironisk," the Norwegian word for, well, you can probably guess.
That irony has some interesting highlights. The Tesla Model S was the best-selling car in Norway last month. Meanwhile, in the 70 oil fields in the waters around the Northern European country are producing two million barrels of oil per day (2011 data). Norway exports a lot of oil and puts the money into something called the Government Pension Fund, which is now worth more than $725 billion US. Some of that money is "recycled," as it were, into government subsidies for electric vehicles. Or, as The Globe And Mail puts it, "Norway's present and future rest solely on everyone else in the world not buying Tesla Model S cars or electric vehicles of any sort."
It's not that dramatic, we don't think, but Norway's shunning of and reliance on the oil industry is a story worth investigating. Especially since the EV subsidies are much bigger there than most other places. Reuters said back in March that the total incentives (purchase subsidies, road toll exemptions, free parking, etc.) for EVs can total up to $8,200 per car, per year. We can only imagine what the sales numbers would be in the US if the American's offered something similar.
That irony has some interesting highlights. The Tesla Model S was the best-selling car in Norway last month. Meanwhile, in the 70 oil fields in the waters around the Northern European country are producing two million barrels of oil per day (2011 data). Norway exports a lot of oil and puts the money into something called the Government Pension Fund, which is now worth more than $725 billion US. Some of that money is "recycled," as it were, into government subsidies for electric vehicles. Or, as The Globe And Mail puts it, "Norway's present and future rest solely on everyone else in the world not buying Tesla Model S cars or electric vehicles of any sort."
It's not that dramatic, we don't think, but Norway's shunning of and reliance on the oil industry is a story worth investigating. Especially since the EV subsidies are much bigger there than most other places. Reuters said back in March that the total incentives (purchase subsidies, road toll exemptions, free parking, etc.) for EVs can total up to $8,200 per car, per year. We can only imagine what the sales numbers would be in the US if the American's offered something similar.
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