Norway exceeds its own projections for EV take-up
By excluding electric cars from its 25% sales and registration taxes, Norway has exceeded its original projections to replace petrol engines with electrics. Depending on the vehicle, this tax can exceed $12,000 upon purchase. The country had expected 50,000 of its 2.5 million registered private vehicles to run on electricity by 2017; instead, it hit 66,000 last month, in addition to 8,000 gasoline-electric hybrids. Furthermore, over 95% of the country's electricity is produced by hydropower, which, according to the NY Times, “…makes Norway’s electricity cleaner and relatively cheap -- a further impetus for adopting e-cars. (A country where much of the electricity is generated by coal-fired power plants would not see as many environmental benefits from switching to electric vehicles.)”

OSLO — Berit Nordgarden and her husband, Eivind Tellefsen, loved their nonpolluting Nissan Leaf electric car. But they found its 85-mile battery life too short for weekend trips to their cottage with their two young children.

So the outdoorsy couple took a deep breath and bought a second car: a Tesla Model S luxury sedan with three times the battery range, the best of any electric car on the market. Buying an $87,000 car was a stretch, requiring them to refinance their primary residence, a cozy wooden home in Oslo.

But the Tesla would have been completely out of reach — costing perhaps double the price — without generous subsidies and incentives that the Norwegian government offers to encourage the adoption of e-cars.

“If there were no incentives, we couldn’t have afforded it,” said Mr. Tellefsen, a computer engineer, as he squinted into the dazzling sun of an autumn afternoon. “We’d probably have bought a secondhand Skoda.’’