Norway EV Push Nears 100 Percent: What's Next?

Norway’s Unique Starting Point

• Massive hydropower surplus and long-standing electrification make additional EV load relatively easy (~10–15% of current generation if all road transport went electric).
• Oil and gas revenues have financed generous EV incentives, reducing reliance on domestic fossil fuel use while exporting it.
• Electricity has historically been cheap compared with neighbors, reinforcing electrification of cars, heating, and ferries.

Subsidies, Taxes, and Tradeoffs

• Core EV push has been tax-based: exemptions from VAT and CO₂/weight-based registration taxes on combustion cars.
• Some predict these exemptions “won’t last forever” and are already being phased down.
• Critics argue subsidies (cited ~40B NOK/year) could have funded metro lines and intercity rail instead, and effectively made driving cheaper than biking or public transport.
• Others counter that early, heavy incentives were needed to kickstart the market and build global scale in batteries and EVs.

Grid and Energy System Impacts

• Several comments push back on “EVs will break the grid”:
  • Hydro is highly dispatchable; Norway can ramp output and exploit export price signals.
  • Existing grids waste plenty of potential generation (curtailed wind/solar, underused cables).
  • Electrification replaces inefficient fossil “primary energy,” so required extra electricity is smaller than fuel energy displaced.
• Smart charging, time-of-use pricing, and vehicle-to-grid are framed as tools that can make large EV fleets stabilizing rather than destabilizing.

Car Culture, Urbanism, and Non‑CO₂ Issues

• Strong criticism that Norway has mostly swapped ICE cars for EVs without reducing car dependence: more cars in cities, same space use, danger, and tire microplastics.
• Noise above ~30 km/h is dominated by tire/road noise, so EVs don’t solve highway noise.
• Supporters argue EVs are still a prerequisite for decarbonizing transport, and Norway is simultaneously improving public transport and cycling, especially in Oslo.

Replicability, Global Context, and Next Steps

• Many see Norway as an outlier: very affluent, energy-rich, high state capacity. Some doubt its model is transferable to countries with weak grids or without hydro and oil wealth.
• Others view it as a bellwether: affluent early adopters de-risk tech that later becomes cheap for everyone.
• “Next” targets mentioned: commercial vehicles, better trains, more electric ferries; electric aviation seen as unlikely without major battery breakthroughs.
• Debate continues over Norway’s role as a fossil exporter: praised for domestic decarbonization, criticized for profiting from emissions abroad.