I understand that you're being intentionally difficult, and probably think it's quite clever, but clear to the rest of us that the original point was that Norway is an extreme outlier with their immense (oil) wealth, hydroelectricity generation and tiny population density.
And massive oil resources. As a result of this, one of the wealthiest sovereign wealth funds on the planet, which they manage well and for the good of the country.
Their hydro energy company is an aluminum company company, they have so much slack power they export it refining bauxite.
It is worth repeating solar panels covering an area about the size of NH generate enough power to supply all current entire US energy needs.
If you include PHEVs along with pure EVs the total is around 12% total sales for 2025, and 4% total on the road. I'm not sure when PHEVs became available overseas but they haven't been an option here for that long. Heaps of hybrids are being sold but for now still mostly of the traditional non-plug-in type.
As alliao says, this is partly because of the way road user charges (RUC) currently work, though that is slated to change in the future.
Hybrids and PHEVs are more complicated given that they are both ICEs and EVs. A pure EV is much cheaper, and many places in the developing world don't have easy access to oil anyways.
Even in the US, our overpriced EVs are cheaper than comparable ICE.
They’re mostly big, and compete with 20mpg models. At $4/gallon, you’ll spend $40K on gasoline to drive a new ICE car 200K miles. The EV premium is typically $10-20K. These are all luxury cars, so a trimline upgrade is often $10K.
EVs have particularly poor resale value (the technology improves rapidly), so if you’re price sensitive you can get a much better deal by buying something a few years old.
In places where competition is allowed, EVs are much cheaper than ICE. That’ll eventually be true in most places. If NZ lets the Chinese models in, I’d expect them to take over immediately.
Model 3s are Honda Accord class, so compacts, not sub-compacts. I haven't seen many sub-compact EVs in the states beyond the Leaf and the Bolt. I’m kind of excited about the new BmW i3, which will be a more normal 3 series size and shape vs the old i3. I won’t buy it of course, I’ve decided I’m not replacing my i4 before a real self driving car is available.
I can't imagine why NZ doesn't allow Chinese EVs in already like Australia has. I would guess it isn’t really about restriction but rather the smaller size of the market.
nz politicians figured out where the tap is to control uptake.. in the name of RUC right now it's tuned so non-plugin hybrid is cheapest, this separates out the price sensitive crowd...
The funny part is, given the geographic proximity and free trade relationship with China, New Zealand could become EV-dominant pretty much as quickly as they want. And as the infrastructure allows - is that a limiting factor?
Without tariffs, the excellent and inexpensive Chinese electric cars might be an attractive option.
That is irrelevant unless Norway has unused capacity.
If a country adds electric cars using more electric power, then what really matters is how that extra power is generated.
It gets weird in Europe because adding extra load in Norway could easily mean that Poland does more generation using coal.
I'm in New Zealand where the government owned generators are preventing solar installations. One example was via an unobvious regulation that the installation had to handle massively overengineered earthquake rules. Meanwhile we use coal or imported gas when the isn't enough rain for our hydro. And we waste about 10% of our total capacity exporting (via one aluminium plant).
Going all electric with cars would add ~10-15% of electric demand. That's a bit, but not really a deal breaker, and something Norway would easily be able to offset by adding more wind turbines.
I tried to find info on whether Norway is adding green generation capacity. Closest answer I got is that they have stopped adding onshore wind and solar is still negligible.
What is a hydro energy resource, a river? Don't lots of countries have rivers?
(If we're talking about hydroelectric power plants they've chosen to build, that's not exactly a resource -- and other countries could choose to build those too, right?)
You need both the right geography and a lack of either people or democracy in the place you want to build it. That rules out new large hydro projects in most of Europe.
Norway has roughly the population of the average US state. So I guess no-one really lives in the USA.
The crazier fact is that a hand full of cities alone in the US has a higher population than all of Norway.
most US states have a lower total population than LA county.
Let's put it more concretely: Norway has about the same amount of people as Alabama.
So nobody lives in Alabama
I understand that you're being intentionally difficult, and probably think it's quite clever, but clear to the rest of us that the original point was that Norway is an extreme outlier with their immense (oil) wealth, hydroelectricity generation and tiny population density.
People love to compare the US to an individual country, rather than a continent.
Compare a country to a state if you want to be honest.
0.1% of the population is pretty close to 0% to be fair.
The USA has 50 states.
And massive oil resources. As a result of this, one of the wealthiest sovereign wealth funds on the planet, which they manage well and for the good of the country.
Their hydro energy company is an aluminum company company, they have so much slack power they export it refining bauxite.
It is worth repeating solar panels covering an area about the size of NH generate enough power to supply all current entire US energy needs.
There must be more to it than this, or we'd have fantastic EV uptake here in New Zealand (we don't - EVs currently only have a 6% market share).
As other siblings have said, it's also very rich and offers mega tax breaks for EVs.
Out of interest, do you mean 6% of cars on the road of 6% of new cars sold last year?
I mean sales, specifically new car pure EV sales for 2025. We are only at 3% EVs on the road.
I think for much of the population a brand new EV is simply too expensive.
Tbf a plug-in is just an EV that somehow runs on petrol 4 times a year. In practice the vast majority of driving is done on battery power.
sadly thats not true at all. In practice, on average as a category, PHEVs barely save any real world emissions over gas (~20%).
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-...
https://electrek.co/2026/02/19/biggest-study-yet-shows-plug-...
If you include PHEVs along with pure EVs the total is around 12% total sales for 2025, and 4% total on the road. I'm not sure when PHEVs became available overseas but they haven't been an option here for that long. Heaps of hybrids are being sold but for now still mostly of the traditional non-plug-in type.
As alliao says, this is partly because of the way road user charges (RUC) currently work, though that is slated to change in the future.
Hybrids and PHEVs are more complicated given that they are both ICEs and EVs. A pure EV is much cheaper, and many places in the developing world don't have easy access to oil anyways.
Even in the US, our overpriced EVs are cheaper than comparable ICE.
They’re mostly big, and compete with 20mpg models. At $4/gallon, you’ll spend $40K on gasoline to drive a new ICE car 200K miles. The EV premium is typically $10-20K. These are all luxury cars, so a trimline upgrade is often $10K.
EVs have particularly poor resale value (the technology improves rapidly), so if you’re price sensitive you can get a much better deal by buying something a few years old.
In places where competition is allowed, EVs are much cheaper than ICE. That’ll eventually be true in most places. If NZ lets the Chinese models in, I’d expect them to take over immediately.
Model 3s are Honda Accord class, so compacts, not sub-compacts. I haven't seen many sub-compact EVs in the states beyond the Leaf and the Bolt. I’m kind of excited about the new BmW i3, which will be a more normal 3 series size and shape vs the old i3. I won’t buy it of course, I’ve decided I’m not replacing my i4 before a real self driving car is available.
I can't imagine why NZ doesn't allow Chinese EVs in already like Australia has. I would guess it isn’t really about restriction but rather the smaller size of the market.
We do have Chinese EVs here in NZ, the comment above is incorrect.
Although curiously, Nissan has stopped selling us the Leaf.
At my current 6000 miles per year that would take over three decades. I’ve never owned a car longer than 10 years.
nz politicians figured out where the tap is to control uptake.. in the name of RUC right now it's tuned so non-plugin hybrid is cheapest, this separates out the price sensitive crowd...
The funny part is, given the geographic proximity and free trade relationship with China, New Zealand could become EV-dominant pretty much as quickly as they want. And as the infrastructure allows - is that a limiting factor?
Without tariffs, the excellent and inexpensive Chinese electric cars might be an attractive option.
> massive hydro energy resources
That is irrelevant unless Norway has unused capacity.
If a country adds electric cars using more electric power, then what really matters is how that extra power is generated.
It gets weird in Europe because adding extra load in Norway could easily mean that Poland does more generation using coal.
I'm in New Zealand where the government owned generators are preventing solar installations. One example was via an unobvious regulation that the installation had to handle massively overengineered earthquake rules. Meanwhile we use coal or imported gas when the isn't enough rain for our hydro. And we waste about 10% of our total capacity exporting (via one aluminium plant).
Going all electric with cars would add ~10-15% of electric demand. That's a bit, but not really a deal breaker, and something Norway would easily be able to offset by adding more wind turbines.
I tried to find info on whether Norway is adding green generation capacity. Closest answer I got is that they have stopped adding onshore wind and solar is still negligible.
Solar and wind is cheap too, no need to attack the Middle East.
> hydro energy resources
What is a hydro energy resource, a river? Don't lots of countries have rivers?
(If we're talking about hydroelectric power plants they've chosen to build, that's not exactly a resource -- and other countries could choose to build those too, right?)
Not just a river, a river plus either an elevation drop or a drownable valley.
A river winding along a flat plain is not a hydro energy resource. A river in the same valley as your capital city is not a hydro energy resource.
Building hydro energy requires a very specific geography. You can't just take any river and turn it into an efficient hydroplant.
You need both the right geography and a lack of either people or democracy in the place you want to build it. That rules out new large hydro projects in most of Europe.
Norway has really a lots of rivers with lots of potential energy of the water, since it comes from the mountains at high altitude (Fjords).
Some big slow moving river in a flat land on the other hand is not helping you here.
More importantly it's one of the richest countries in the world, and has high taxes but big tax breaks for EVs.
And strongly penalizes non-EVs.
And lots of bad conscious from all the oil.