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Norway Agrees On Banning New Sales Of Gas-Powered Cars By 2025: Report (electrek.co) 249

If you live in Norway, an all-electric future is likely closer than you think. The country's four leading political parties have agreed to a plan to stop selling gas-powered cars by 2025, according to a report. Electrek reports: The four main political parties, both from the right and the left, have agreed on a new energy policy that will include a ban on new gasoline-powered car sales as soon as 2025 -- making it one of the most aggressive timeline of its kind for such a policy. What's probably most remarkable here is that Norway is currently one of the world's largest Oil exporters.Tesla CEO Elon Musk was rather pleased with the announcement. He said, "Just heard that Norway will ban new sales of fuel cars in 2025. What an amazingly awesome country. You guys rock!!"
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Norway Agrees On Banning New Sales Of Gas-Powered Cars By 2025: Report

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  • Who's volunteering for point?

  • Or is this one of those "diesel and CNG don't count as gas" sort of deals that lets them play propaganda games?
    • Re:WTF (Score:5, Informative)

      by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Saturday June 04, 2016 @05:46PM (#52250119)
      Uh, it's easier than that. One of the apparently less-relevant political parties in Norway suggested this course of action and other Norwegian political parties refused to support this. Something was apparently lost in translation.
      • Re:WTF (Score:5, Informative)

        by tomhath ( 637240 ) on Saturday June 04, 2016 @06:41PM (#52250381)

        All that's happened is that some of the political parties have agreed to discuss a plan banning new sales as early as 2025.

        Somehow that translated to "Norway will ban new sales of fuel cars in 2025"

    • Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lgw ( 121541 ) on Saturday June 04, 2016 @05:55PM (#52250171) Journal

      I have a different WTF - WTF is the EU flag doing as the Slashdot icon for a story about Norway? Norway isn't part of the EU - precisely because it has all that wonderful cash from oil exports.

      Norway is the only country I've ever seem where socialism is sustainable - forever spending more than your tax revenue works great if you have another source of revenue to make up the difference! (If only Iraq had been set up with the same model - thongs might have gone very differently there.) Of course, they won't have a bright future if everyone stops buying that oil.

      • Triple WTF
        1. The news is incorrect. The conservative government were quick to say that this never was agreed.
        2. Yes, not part of EU
        3. Not really socialists. Labour party (maybe more like democrats) were kicked out of power. Norway now has a conservative government. (maybe more between democrats and republicans)

        • Re:WTF (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Saturday June 04, 2016 @08:30PM (#52250769) Homepage

          3. Not really socialists. Labour party (maybe more like democrats) were kicked out of power. Norway now has a conservative government. (maybe more between democrats and republicans)

          No. Not even close. Even the right-most party of our coalition is definitively to the left of the democratic party, maybe if they elected Bernie Sanders and took a big step to the left they'd be getting close. The labour party and their coalition partners including the "socialist left" (SV) are so far off the charts I don't know how to describe it to an American. They're not totalitarian, but so egalitarian that... one of their youth politicians seriously wanted "equal pay for work". Not "equal pay for equal work", but what I just said. They want us out of NATO, if we just don't threaten anyone nobody will threaten us. That really worked out great for us during WWII, we totally didn't threaten Germany in any way and they totally didn't occupy us for five years. Sigh.

          Maybe I'll try for a Star Trek analogy since this is /., in one of the TNG episodes Q was stripped of his power and chose the human race as his sanctuary when he had nothing. Well, if I was stripped of everything and had to pick a country on earth I'd pick Norway. Nowhere else are you treated with that much pity, this much aid, so few demands and so little resentment. Even when we had a mass murderer (Breivik) killing almost 70 of our teens and a dozen more in total the worst that happen was that one person threw a shoe - and he apoligized to the court. I've heard it said about Gandhi you'd hardly believe such a man could exist, well Norway is pretty much the same when it comes to nations. I'm amazed that our naivety has gotten us so far.

          • It's probably because literally everyone loves you, Norway. You're like the cool cousin who got rich and somehow didn't turn into a completely FYGM shitheel because of it.

            And a harsh climate breeds people who value community, because sometimes that was all people had left.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        If only Iraq had been set up with the same model - thongs might have gone very differently there.

        Well if it had worked in Iran when they tried Iraq might have followed after, you should read up on what happened there.
        To sum it up, some bad guys didn't like the idea of a socialist utopia in Iran so the staged a coup that led to the shithole Iran is today.

        As for your comment on sustainable socialism you clearly have a very narrow idea of what socialism is that doesn't include most functional socialism in the world.

        • To sum it up, some bad guys didn't like the idea of a socialist utopia in Iran so the staged a coup that led to the shithole Iran is today.

          Ahh yes, Operation Ajax. Those bad guys? The US and the UK.

          But remember, the refugee crisis isn't our problem, the Middle East is just full of violent fucked up people completely independent of foreign meddling, right? Right?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by gcswt ( 4309907 )
        Norway is not socialist, far from it. Norway arguably is a more market economy than even the United States. https://fee.org/articles/the-m... [fee.org]
      • Socialism works wonderfully well in Finland as well. My wife, kid and myself live in Finland, so I should know.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by lgw ( 121541 )

          Admittedly Finland's debt to GDP is better than the US, but that's not saying much. In the past 30 years it has grown from 10% of GDP to over 60%. Socialism always looks nice until you run our of other people's money (then it looks like Venezuela). Still, enjoy it while it lasts.

          • Re:WTF (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04, 2016 @10:09PM (#52251173)

            race-to-the-bottom capitalism works, until there's no new markets (all the wealth is in the hands of the wealthy, and the poor throngs have no money to spend. The rich can't spend money fast enough, and the poor, well, they can just eat cake), then things end up like Somalia. So, enjoy it while it lasts.

          • Why do you think that comparing a quantity with a rate is a meaningful economic metric?
            Why do you think that 60% is a large value for that metric ?

          • Re:WTF (Score:4, Interesting)

            by ultranova ( 717540 ) on Sunday June 05, 2016 @04:05AM (#52252251)

            In the past 30 years it has grown from 10% of GDP to over 60%.

            As it happens, the past 30 years have also seen a huge shift to the right. By contrast, Finland's socialist period saw the shift from an agrarian backwater to an industrial power.

            Socialism always looks nice until you run our of other people's money (then it looks like Venezuela).

            Socialism works as long as people in charge care more about building up the country more than filling their pockets or advancing their pet ideology (ironically enough, that includes socialism itself). Sadly, our current government is determined to not just loot the country for the benefit of the owning class but also destroying the very institutions that would allow it to be rebuilt, such as education, postal system, public roads, and government ownership of various industries.

            In any case it doesn't matter. Capitalism nearly collapsed when Great Depression put people out of work, and thus made them unable to participate in the economy. This time the same is done by technological progress brought on by capitalism's own inexorable logic. The Age of Capital is ending, and the shadow of Soviet Union still weights down socialism as a viable alternative making peaceful transition difficult if not impossible, so I suppose we're heading for another age of turmoil and revolutions. The question is: what, if anything, will be left standing after Capitalism is done falling?

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        forever spending more than your tax revenue works great if you have another source of revenue to make up the difference!

        No matter how much money you earn from whatever source it's always possible to live beyond your means. For example, just because you have lots of oil revenue doesn't mean that you can be undisciplined in how you spend and re-invest it. That's why Venezuela, which should be a rich country with such enormous reserves of oil, is instead experiencing extreme poverty with shortages of electricity, clean water, food, toilet paper, medicine and just about everything else that people need and want. It's unscientifi

      • by karzan ( 132637 )

        (If only Iraq had been set up with the same model - thongs might have gone very differently there.).

        Yes, Iraqi thongs have always been a disappointment. But let's be fair to them, they are miles ahead in the mankini industry.

    • Also, it is interesting on how the sale ban would work.

      Will all sales be banned or just the new imports (and people will be able to sell their cars, much like with full auto guns in the US)? That is, if I lived there, would I need to buy multiple cars now or would I still be able to buy a used car later (at a higher price)?

      • People would still be able to sell their vehicles - it mentioned that it'd be a ban on NEW car sales. So it'd probably be like other bans around - you get a boost in sales right before the ban goes into place. Saw that with incandescent light bulbs here in the USA. Even though they're really still available - 'special duty', 'industrial', 'utility', etc... They still sell them for use in fridges, ovens, etc...

        So, given that vehicles are averaging something like 15 years now, what I figure is that you'd

    • Or is this one of those "diesel and CNG don't count as gas" sort of deals that lets them play propaganda games?

      In 2014, in Norway, 95% of its electricity was hydroelectric which may mean they may not need fossil fuels for cars. By building another dam or add other renewable electricity sources Norway can provide the additional needs of transportation. Besides, the North Sea is being depleted of fossil fuels and eventually it will be all gone. One estimate I've seen is that as of 2010, Norway had about 24 years of North Sea oil production time left and their production has fallen to half of it's 2000 volume and conti

    • Let's read the article and find out:

      "gasoline-powered car sales (diesel or petrol) "

      "Norway’s initiative looks like it could be the first made into law and would only allow zero-emission vehicles to be sold in the country starting in less than a decade."

    • Kind of what I figured. Exempt Diesel, CNG, vehicles for those living outside urban areas, vehicles 'designed for towing'(without checking to see if the buy will actually tow anything), motorcycles, etc...

      Besides the whole 'minority of a minority party proposed this', there's plenty of ways to water it down to uselessness, even if it's not like a second term president issuing an executive order to become effective in 12 years. When him AND his successor are gone, and the successor or his successor can sim

  • by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Saturday June 04, 2016 @06:02PM (#52250197)

    So there will be a ban on "new" gas powered cars. But what about older, used cars? I'm thinking the Norwegians will go the way of the Cubans, and develop ways to keep the older cars running as long as possible. In Havana, you can see running examples of the best that Detroit produced in the 50's. Ingenuity, duck tape, chewing gum and chicken wire keep them running. I'm guessing that the Norwegians can pull off that feat, as well.

    Plus, the Norwegians are super cool, brave, daring and unafraid. What do you cook for Christmas dinner? Toss a frozen Butterball in the oven? Norwegians skewer a sheep's head on a pike in their backyards, and cook it with a flame thrower. Supposedly, the eyes of the critter taste the best.

    I would not mess with those folks. In other news, the Norwegians have wisely invested their oil fortunes for future generations. Unlike some Gulf states, who build fancy hotel palaces.

    • Once the electric technology is developed enough I probably would be able to (if such a need arises) convert my W123 to electric power and still have the same range and performance as it does now.

      That is, only the power source would change, the car would still have no internet connectivity, touch screens or anything like that.

    • You don't need to go to Cuba to see that. Most of Ohio and lots of rural parts of PA do all sorts of things to keep older cars running. Lower Ohio has it better than where I live as winter road salts and general ice and snow cause damage to cars here. I lived in Columbus OH for a few years though and it was funny you'd see expensive brand new Dodge Vipers and Porsche 911's drive next to 1950's and 1960's era beaters. I'm sure other places are much the same, I just haven't seen them to say myself.

      • You never see old cars in rust country. Once they pass their value minimum, people keep them out of the crap. Especially if they had to pay for rust repair.

        Come to California, cars just don't rust here, unless you live in a beach house. Even then, it's nothing like salted roads rust.

        • Again... Get far enough south even around here and you see plenty of old cars. Near Columbus or Pittsburgh they don't get snow (it got a very light dusting in Columbus once in the 3 and a half years I lived there), though plenty enough rain all year round. So you do see a lot of old cars. Most commonly the big boats, like old caddies, my grandmother could have owned. They have very... Creative modifications like a 2x4 for a replacement bumper held on by rope and who knows what. Lots of antique VW bugs (some

    • by Ramze ( 640788 ) on Saturday June 04, 2016 @06:36PM (#52250357)

      My bet is that since Norway already has the highest per capita usage of electric cars, the gasoline ones will simply slowly go extinct after the legislation. Gas and diesel are generally more expensive in Europe than the USA to begin with, and people are welcoming the switch.

      I imagine 10 or 20 years after the ban of new sales, gas stations might start to disappear first. Once the infrastructure for gasoline vehicles is gone, they'll start to die off even faster -- my bet is most will be sold to other countries. At least in Cuba, there are gas stations. No one is going to keep up an old clunker if they have to import and store the gasoline themselves.... and figure out where to gas up on long trips.

    • In Havana, you can see running examples of the best that Detroit produced in the 50's. Ingenuity, duck tape, chewing gum and chicken wire keep them running. I'm guessing that the Norwegians can pull off that feat, as well.

      Havana looks like that due to years of trade restrictions and lack of local manufacturing. It's not hard to keep a car running for a really long time when you don't have either of those. There's a great many cars from the 50s in the world that look just as good as they did 66 years ago.

      But really that's ignoring the fact that the Nordic and American cultures are very different. People in this part of the world don't buy for a what-if scenario. They buy what suits them nearly all the time and hire alternativ

  • by ytene ( 4376651 ) on Saturday June 04, 2016 @06:03PM (#52250201)
    For a relatively small Nordic country, Norway have been pretty smart. When the North Sea Oil business started up, Norway taxed the profits just like the UK did, but unlike the UK, which squandered the proceeds in the 1980s and 1990s, Norway invested all their tax revenue in a Sovereign Wealth Fund (basically like an investment portfolio for the entire country). That fund is no performing so well that the per-capita tax burden in Norway is much lower than it would. Have been had Norway followed the UK's short-sighted approach.

    They have excellent roads and infrastructure and the potential for cheap renewable energy. If anyone in Europe can make that happen, Norway can....
  • by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Saturday June 04, 2016 @06:10PM (#52250243)
    Norway is the 10th largest oil exporter [wikipedia.org]. So this is kinda like saying "I will not drive a petroleum-powered car anymore. Instead I will drive an electric car paid for by money I made selling petroleum to you so you can drive your petroleum-powered cars."

    If they were really against oil as an energy source, they would stop drilling for it and selling it.
    • Had they stopped selling oil, you would them claim they are patronizing importer countries by not letting them make the "incorrect" decision to keep using oil. Conveniently, you would be able to accuse them of a moral failing no matter what choice they made.

      Or maybe they recognize that in some areas it is easier to convert to non-gas infrastructure than others and that it is reasonable to convert in the easier places first while continuing to use gas-powered cars in other areas.

    • Oil's days are numbered but the decision isn't all based on global warming. There are some very real benefits to be had locally when not burning crap the biggest of which is better air quality. Australia is a dirty dirty polluting place per capita not even counting the moutains of coal we sell overseas rather than burning it ourselves. Yet when I moved to Europe I was astonished by the thick smell of petrol and diesel as I walk down the street compare to back home.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      They have to import petroleum because much of their oil is refined into other things. But yes, they are aware that getting all that oil and gas out of the ground has an effect on the climate, which is why they are aiming to be carbon neutral by 2030 and really pushing green technology like EVs. By paying the initially higher costs themselves now they not only offset the damage that burning that oil and gas is doing by advancing the technology quicker than it otherwise would, but they prepare their economy f

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I thought of a better way to explain it. The gulf states are going to produce oil and use it to enrich themselves, caring little about the environment. The US isn't much better. But Norway is using the oil wealth to address climate change, to develop the technologies needed and get them down to competitive prices, and show how we can live at an extremely high standard while remaining carbon neutral.

      When you consider how many times it has been argued that power = quality of life on Slashdot, it's clear that

  • Hydropower (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TeknoHog ( 164938 ) on Saturday June 04, 2016 @06:16PM (#52250261) Homepage Journal

    What's probably most remarkable here is that Norway is currently one of the world's largest Oil exporters.

    They also have plenty of hydroelectric power, so they can basically power themselves sustainably while selling all the oil. Talk about winning the geographic lottery.

  • It will be interesting to see how this works, if they pull it off at all and how much it costs them. I predict one of two things will happen:

    A) It will work pretty well in Norway, and half of Slashdot will spend far too many words arguing why it can't work in their country.
    B) It will completely and utterly fail in Norway, yet half of Slashdot will spend far too many words arguing why it'll definitely work in their country.

    Can just a few of us agree now that however this turns out in Norway, it'll be a pr

    • by swb ( 14022 )

      If its just "new petrol and diesel car sales" does that mean they will ban used car sales? Used car imports? This seems like one of those loopholes that could possibly be widely exploited if it was allowed.

      The other thing I would wonder about is what the math is on electric consumption. Do they have a major electricity surplus or will they have to think about increasing electric rates or build new power generation facilities to handle the increased load?

      • Norway's geography and population distribution is ideally suited for hydroelectric, so they get most of their electricity that way. Whether they import or export, and their cost, depends on recent rains. During the rainy season of years with lots of rain, they have plenty of inexpensive electricity. They export a small amount of electricity during those times. During the drier months and during years with less precipitation, electricity is more scarce and more expensive. They import electricity during t

    • Can just a few of us agree now that however this turns out in Norway, it'll be a pretty good indication of how well it might work elsewhere?

      The major disadvantages of electric cars at this point are political - at least in the US.

      • We see from this story that the political support in Norway is so much that they are REQUIRING electric cars. Not encouraging them, but requiring them. Certainly that's a HUGE political advantage, right?

        Therefore, if it turns out to be a huge failure, that's not because of political opposition, but due to some other problem. So we can agree that if it fails in Norway, you'll need to reconsider your current thinking, correct?

        • We see from this story that the political support in Norway is so much that they are REQUIRING electric cars. Not encouraging them, but requiring them. Certainly that's a HUGE political advantage, right?

          Too bad I didn't mention the US in my post, eh? Oh. Wait.

          I was talking about the USA, where there are political forces in play that have actually banned Tesla dealerships.

          • I was talking about the USA, where there are political forces in play that have actually banned Tesla dealerships.

            There's no such thing as a Tesla "dealership", which is actually the problem, because many states have mandated that manufacturers can't sell cars directly, that they must be sold through dealerships.

            While I object to such laws as well, let's not pretend that it's because Teslas are electric. Indeed, they're getting away with more exceptions to the franchise laws than they would have if they were traditional gasoline vehicles.

    • It might work in Norway, but I wouldnt take that as granted that its a good indication of success elsewhere - here in the UK, such a decree would destroy new car ownership for a good portion of the public. Why? Because a good portion of the UKs population live in cities in housing with no offstreet parking, no guaranteed parking space onstreet and very poor public transport - to get to my local hospital from my previous house would be two bus changes and a trip time of over an hour, or 15 minutes by car.

      Its

  • I don't know about Norway but personal automobiles wouldn't work in the US without the huge amount of cost externalizing we do. That's why "clean" coal went away. The damage to people's health and well being gets picked up by the gov't and individuals instead of car companies (to say nothing of the massive infrastructure and the wars fought for cheap oil). Take that away and it's too expensive for anyone but the richest to drive ICE vehicles.
  • So they'll be driving DIESEL cars?
  • ... when Norway is not part of the EU?

  • I suspect, it being the EU, that it just means that buying a gas powered car only requires a brief trip into Sweden. Or Finland.
    • by ruir ( 2709173 )
      Not necessarily; Portugal has been part of EU for decades, and despite being continuously advised over the years to drop a pre-EU protectionist law that makes quite a bureaucratic process to bring in cars bought in other countries, it never really was abolished; just got a name change.
      The incentive for the state is that there are quite huge tax gains on it "For instance, in January of 2008, 1 Volvo V50 D5 cost in Portugal €49.100,00 while it was €34.275,00 in Spain and €28.545,00 in Sweeden
  • While I support the policy, I dislike the approach.

    Democracy is when the Sovereign People makes choices, not when politicians agree in their back and offer no political choices. Such long term policy could have been settled by a referendum

  • Switching cars from gasoline to diesel isn't going to make any difference.

  • What about vehicles that run on diesel, or alcohol, or natural gas?
  • So they want to mandate lesser "cars" for their citizens while letting their nomenklatura drive actual cars? So far, about anything affordable to the average person trends towards golfcart size, as opposed to usable size. Of course, exotics and other vehicles meant for "betters" are untouched.

    Not surprised given that it is the technocratic EU, where you accept what your "betters" give you and don't question their sins - unless you want to be smote from the Earth as an enemy of mankind.

    But don't let a litt

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