Norway Leads in E.V. Sales.

Remember Norway is a small-ish country - comparable population to Scotland ~ 5 million, or the population of London, so while this is an interesting statistic, its not as many electric cars as many other countries.

It may not be as many EVs as some other countries but it is still very interesting since the government there have had a drive to move people away from fossil fuels. The comparison with Scotland is probably a lot better than with London (which has a 60% greater population) as Scotland and Norway have similar populations and similar geographies/population spreads. Many Norwegians have weekend/summer homes 'up-country' and this means there is a need for a car that can achieve commuting during the week and long range travel at the weekend. I suspect that the big driver in this has been the taxes imposed on fossil fuel cars which the electric cars are exempt from. Taxes are in the region of 35% for petrol/diesel cars, fuel is significantly more expensive than charging, and electric cars are exempt from the tolls on many roads.

I also noticed even ten years ago that Norway was much more geared up for electric cars, with charging points being reasonably common there before I had even seen any in public places in the UK.

What is going to be interesting to watch is how the electric car users cope with declining range as the battery ages....

Alasdair

This is an interesting view point on Low Emission Trucks to meet the latest legislation. A key point is the infrastructure requirements:

'ACEA estimates show there will need to be 20,000 DC 150-500kW charging points installed over the next six years in Europe.
Furthermore, it says there needs to be at least 6,000 high power 500kW+ chargers, 500 CH2 (compressed hydrogen) and LH2 (liquefied hydrogen) stations, 500 CNG (compressed natural gas) stations and at least 1,000 LNG (liquefied natural gas) stations.'


Taking a mid value of 300kW that is 6GW of 'middle' power chargers and at least 3GW of high power chargers. Thats a several power stations and a lot of distribution infrastructure ?

https://www.commercialfleet.org/news/truck-news/2019/04/02/lack-of-infrastructure-holding-back-cleaner-trucks


Best regards


Roger

or in the short term something that burns gas to generate electricity - that is in effect a local generator at the charging point - which may actually be preferable in remote locations to laying in new 11KV lines.


I know AFC were looking at hydrogen fuel cells in a box like a large petrol pump as a possible multikilowatt source that could be dropped anywhere that could be reached by a lorry carrying gas bottles, and has a local atmosphere.

The trippy name for the demonstrator version of this product was "ch2arge".