Norway, in an effort to wean their drivers off of fossil fuels, are offering subsidies and incentives for Norwegians to buy electric cars. The idea behind this is for Norway to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions and reach its United Nations climate goals.
The current amount of electric cars in Norway is still only 2 percent, but that is quite high compared to other countries. And with a population of 5.2 million, that's still a decent amount of electric cars on the road. More than one-fifth of new car sales in Norway are electric cars. According to some predictions, there are going to be about 50,000 electric cars in Norway by 2017.
However, with the rapid increase of electric cars, the Norwegian public doesn't think the government has the proper accommodations for the cars. In Oslo, there are only 700 charging stations, though there are expected to be 1,000 by the year's end. And some city and regional governments are recording losses in profits from a decrease in the use of public transportation.
It'll be interesting to see how this program turns out. Will they be doing a program like cash for clunkers but for electric cars? Would this work in the United States? Will this program be successful?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/17/business/international/norway-is-global-model-for-encouraging-sales-of-electric-cars.html?ref=business
5 comments:
I feel this program might be an instant hit following the Volkswagen scandal. Not only Volkswagen, some other European car-makers also got affected due to the controversy created by Volkswagen, resulting in a sort of 'Euro-car-phobia' scenario. A lot of environmentally conscious consumers might think that a lot of other automakers might have done something like what Volkswagen did and so would prefer switching to a 'greener' program. It would be interesting to see the initial outcomes of the program.
Going off of Emily's post, I do feel like a program like this would be successful in the United States in densely populated areas like New York City or Atlanta - not however, in every part of the U.S. I feel that it would work in areas where green house emissions are reaching all time records due to copious amounts of cars on roadways and where public transportation can only to do so much to help combat the problem. I also feel that not only will the infrastructure of the city have to change, but so will the budgetary needs surrounding a project this massive.
Returning now to the article, it highlighted that to accommodate Norwegian citizens, the Norwegian government must provide the infrastructure required to sustain further growth in the electric car market. I also agree with the fact that 1,000 charging stations will simply not be enough to support the amount of cars on Norwegian roadways by 2017 and the government needs to act on this matter now. If they fail to do so, the electric car market may not reach its full potential.
In spite of all of this, I do however feel that in a country such as Norway - with some of the best infrastructure in the world - the Norwegian government will be able to accommodate the growing need of charging stations in all of their cities and the electric car market will thrive. All we have to do now, is wait and watch it unfold.
I think electric cars still have some progress to make before a majority adaptation could happen. Improving range and charging times will be necessary if adaptation is to extend beyond the limits of major cities. Also, there will need to be a change over from petroleum to electric infrastructure in addition to refining the product's life cycle environmental impact.
I agree with Tyler because the fact that electric cars still aren't foolproof. If Norway doesn't have enough charging stations for the amount of cars they have, what does that mean for larger countries? I also think Kaley's idea of having these cars in more densely populated cities is a good idea; it's almost like ZipCar, where people "check out" a car for a specified time. Maybe they can do an electric version of the ZipCar. But like I mentioned earlier, adapting the infrastructure to electric cars might take a while and not be as effective.
I think this is definitely a step in the right direction and as Professor Gitter says,"people respond to incentives." I think early on this will create a lot of buzz around becoming more fuel efficient a more eco-friendly environment. However, I agree with the statements above in that if Norway is committed to this green initiative investment will have to be made in these electric cars in making them a more reliable and an equal alternative for cars today. It will be hard to get car companies to invest and produce cars in this way. In light of the recent VW scandal and other companies asking for less strict regulations, it will take time before these companies are able to produce such a product and one that consumers will be just as happy to buy.
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