In a stunning milestone for the electric vehicle (EV) revolution, Norway has hit a record-breaking 97% EV share of new car registrations in April 2025,
I do have to credit Norway with the EVs: while Norway is relatively-well-to-do and can afford EVs more than many countries, it did so despite geography that was pretty unfavorable.
It’s a country that gets pretty cold (albeit not to the degree that many other places at similar northern latitudes are, due to their proximity to water). One of the challenges EVs have is cold weather reducing EV range, and that’s on top of not having a free source of waste heat to run the car heater from an ICE, so all the energy to run a heater has to also be pulled from the battery.
IIRC at least some of the Teslas have laminated glass on windows other than the windshield, which I mostly think of as being interesting in terms of sound insulation, but understand also does provide some thermal insulation. I don’t know if anyone makes an “Arctic package” for Tesla vehicles.
Here’s someone talking about charging issues at very low temperatures:
Charging: As I don’t drive that much, I am typically satisfied with Level 1 charging at home. I usually can charge 20% of my battery overnight. At -40c however, the car doesn’t charge at all when I get home. So I heat my garage a bit and get the temperature just a bit above freezing, and I wait 2 or 3 hours for the battery to warm a bit, and the battery starts charging at about -5 degrees at a rate of 1kW, or 6.7km/hr.
Nah, I think Norway is perfect country for EV adoption. Winters are not that cold - most of population lives on the coast. Mountain driving is much better in EV than in a fossil car - when you need to descent from a high altitude in petrol car you have to remember to keep high gear and not to burn breaks. In EV you just smile at the battery charge going up.
In Norway almost all driving is 70 - 90 km/h tops. You have quite high efficiency here, so a 400km rated EV will actually deliver that range on a road trip. It is like 5 hours of driving before you need to charge again. In central Europe in a similar car you jump on a motorway and at 140km/h you need to recharge after 2 hours or so, which is annoying.
I do have to credit Norway with the EVs: while Norway is relatively-well-to-do and can afford EVs more than many countries, it did so despite geography that was pretty unfavorable.
It’s a country that gets pretty cold (albeit not to the degree that many other places at similar northern latitudes are, due to their proximity to water). One of the challenges EVs have is cold weather reducing EV range, and that’s on top of not having a free source of waste heat to run the car heater from an ICE, so all the energy to run a heater has to also be pulled from the battery.
IIRC at least some of the Teslas have laminated glass on windows other than the windshield, which I mostly think of as being interesting in terms of sound insulation, but understand also does provide some thermal insulation. I don’t know if anyone makes an “Arctic package” for Tesla vehicles.
Here’s someone talking about charging issues at very low temperatures:
https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/ztp410/extreme_cold_weather_review_tesla_model_3_rwd/
Nah, I think Norway is perfect country for EV adoption. Winters are not that cold - most of population lives on the coast. Mountain driving is much better in EV than in a fossil car - when you need to descent from a high altitude in petrol car you have to remember to keep high gear and not to burn breaks. In EV you just smile at the battery charge going up.
In Norway almost all driving is 70 - 90 km/h tops. You have quite high efficiency here, so a 400km rated EV will actually deliver that range on a road trip. It is like 5 hours of driving before you need to charge again. In central Europe in a similar car you jump on a motorway and at 140km/h you need to recharge after 2 hours or so, which is annoying.
I thought you kept a lower gear to better control the speed. Have I been driving wrong all this time¿?
Your are absolutely right. I have misspoken (miswritten?).
The main issue in winter is traction, at least with the cheaper EVs, not range.
Norway is not that big of a country, it’s pretty rare that people will drive anywhere above 2 hours away
Idk where this person lives where it gets to -40c regularly. In most of Norway it’s usually 0 - -20c at the most during winter
I agree that people rarely drive more than 2 hours, but Norway is pretty big, or at least long - over 2000km between Kristiansand and Trømso.
He’s in Canada. Probably inland, away from water.