Will Norway ban the combustion engine? India next?

Automologist MAC receives hot news about somewhere cold from someone cool.  

As a follower of Elon Musk’s Twitter feed, I got a heads-up on on some possible legislation coming from Norway where the four main political parties have been locked in a debate on the best way to ban combustion engines by 2025. Elon was amongst the first to congratulate the Norwegian legislature on the proposed ban, which although not law yet, seems to be inevitable in the land of the fjords.

I’ll have an iced Tesla please.

Norway is one of the world’s largest oil exporters, so a ban on the combustion engine may seem counter-intuitive, especially when you think of the wastefulness of some of the world’s other major oil exporters. However, politicians from all sides of the Norwegian parliament have worked together to draft the proposed ban and all they need to do now is to vote for it in the next session. If the bill passes, then from 2025 the only vehicles that will be sold in Norway will be either fully electric or hydrogen-powered. This ban is on top of the announced ban of all vehicles from the Oslo city centre by 2019.

There are obviously some kinks to be worked out as thus far there are no commercially available vans or trucks, nor are there any suitable vehicles for working in tough terrain and extreme weather conditions - two things that Norway has plenty of. But, Norway already leads the world in the number of EV’s on the road, with sales for passenger vehicles amounting to 24% of total sales. However, in terms of global warming, it will have little effect, really, as Norway only puts about 150,000 new cars on the road per year.

The increase in the number of EV’s on the road has already resulted in a gradual shrinking of the hydrocarbon-based filling station infrastructure, resulting in it already becoming more difficult to operate combustion engines; the government hopes that this trend will continue unabated.

In a related article on the ELECTREK website, India’s Power Minister, Piyush Goyal, has announced plans that could see all new cars in India becoming electric by 2030. In his announcement, he outlined plans to give the cars away for free with a sort of rent/purchase thereafter, based on the amount of electricity they consume. It surely is a Brave New World out there.

image: motoring.com.au