Norway Spent 60+ Billion on EV Subsidies since 2007 w/o Any Data

The Greatest Grift of All (12): all parties support massive tax cuts benefitting the upper middle classes while there is no data, let alone anyone who claims responsibility for anything

This is a very long piece—as it turns out, the most EV-friendly gov’t of Norway spend US$ 60+ billion since 2007 heavily subsidising EVs.

Not only does the gov’t have no data if this actually works, we note that CO2 emissions from passenger cars are some 10% of Norway’s total emissions—and while I personally deplore legacy media journos™, politicos™, and academia™ for not holding those responsible to account, the biggest problems are: innumeracy (the mathematical equivalent of illiteracy) of most adults (esp. problematic in regards to geometric growth) and irresponsibility.

It’s often said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions; given what follows, I’d add that highway patrol is performed by spineless polticos™ in cahoots with useless experts™ and journos™ providing traffic assistance by virtue-signalling their way out of providing any meaningful information.

Translation, emphases, and [snark] mine. As is the disgust.

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How Much the Electric Car Policy Has Cost

Norwegian car taxes have been cut by NOK 640 billion [approx. US$ 64b] to meet climate targets. But the government doesn’t know how much the electric car initiative has reduced emissions [if at-all].

By Snorre Tønset, NRK, 17 June 2015 [source; archived]

It has been called Norway’s most important climate measure. Due to enormous tax cuts, EVs have completely taken over the sales statistics.

In 2007, the government took half of the price of the best-selling cars in taxes.

Last year [2024; fiscal and calendar years are identical in Norway], taxes were less than 5 per cent on one of the best-selling electric cars, a Volkswagen ID 4.

Only NOK 22,000 went to the government in tax—compared with NOK 210,000 for the best-selling car in 2007, a Volkswagen Passat [given these ‘historical’ price/tax levels, we also, however implicitly, learn about both inflation rates and the corresponding loss of purchasing power since then: in nominal (as-is) terms, a new VW Passat (Base Sedan/Wagon 4D) cost around US$ 25K, and a 3.6L 4Motion Wagon 4D would clock in at around US$ 34K in 2007; since then, cumulative inflation (2007-24) is officially about 53%, these prices, if adjusted for inflation, would be around US$ 37-40K (Base Sedan/Wagon 4D) and US$ 52K (4Motion Wagon 4D)—if the numbers provided by Mr. Tønset are halfway correct (and I don’t know), a 2007 VW Passat costs NOK 420,000 or some US$ 71,400 (in 2007, 5.88 NOK = 1 US$); in 2025 (around 11 NOK = 1 US$ or euro), the same price of 420K = around US$ 38K].

In 2007, half the price of a VW Passat went to the state in taxes. In 2024, taxes on VW ID.4 were less than 5 per cent of the price [2025 prices range between NOK 437,380 and 567,900; if the gov’t takes ‘merely’ NOK 22,000 in taxes, these rates are considerably less than 5%]

And there’s no doubt that the tax cut has had an impact on car sales.

Nine out of ten new cars sold in Norway last year were electric [ahem, that’s not false, but once again, legacy media leaves out crucial context—there’s around 400-500K used cars that are sold every year in Norway; the crucial point here is that used cars (irrespective of age/mileage) don’t come with the 25% VAT going to the gov’t; take, e.g., my own (shit) car, a 2017 Peugeot 2008 (gasoline), which I bought in summer 2020 for 20K (mileage 8,100km)]. In total, there are now well over 800,000 electric cars on Norwegian roads [that’s true, and their increase has been significant—with a clear peak of new EV registrations in 2023, if only because the gov’t ended many tax cuts/perks as of 1 July of that year…incidentally, as EV range increases, owners also drive more, offsetting many of the alleged benefits of EV adoption].

Both electric car buyers and dealers have had good reason to celebrate the tax cuts.

‘It has been extremely important to electrify the car fleet in order to achieve a major and important climate goal’, says Ulf Tore Hekneby, CEO of Harald A. Møller [one of Norway’s largest car dealerships, and he is of course happy that the gov’t took prices for sold cars down quite a bit; stay focused on the ‘major and important climate goal’].

Emissions are Going Down

Norway’s goal is to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 70-75 per cent by 2035, compared to 1990. This target was voted into law by the Norwegian parliament last week [yay; I’ll provide some updates on this one, too, albeit in due time: it’s too early to tell].

But there is still a long way to go. So far, emissions have fallen by only 12.5 per cent in these 35 years.

Last year’s reduction was 3.5 per cent, according the preliminary figures for greenhouse gas emissions for 2024 published last week [it’s 3.5% relative to 2023—here’s how that came about: ‘The decline is mainly due to more electrification in oil and gas production, more electric cars, and some downtime in industry. In addition, there is more green energy in shipping and fishing’—translated from the BS, we note that EV share of the car fleet rose from 24% to 27.4%; ‘downtime in industry’ = reduction of manufacturing; the most important driver here is likely oil and gas production (note, as an aside, the insane plan to convert drilling rigs to electric power)]

The electric car policy is cited as one of the main reasons for declining emissions [that would be because the Minister for Transportation, one Andreas Bjellanmd Eriksen (Arbeiderpartiet, or Labour Party), went on the record as follows: ‘The decline in emissions shows that the measures we have implemented are working and that we are heading in the right direction.’ What remains however unmentioned here is—what’s the share of emissions coming from passenger cars?]

‘Both the current and previous governments are to be commended for standing firm on the electric car policy, the escalation of the CO2 tax and support for restructuring through Enova,’ says Zero leader Stig Schjølset.

Deep Cuts

For a long time, car taxes were a hated but important source of government revenue [do tell me more…].

But the EV revolution has made deep cuts into these government revenues.

In 2007, the government collected NOK 93 billion in car-related taxes and VAT—at today’s rates. Last year, this had shrunk to NOK 30 billion—less than a third [and here we are: Mr. Tønset alludes to inflation without ever saying it, and we’re none the wiser in regards to what numbers he and NRK have been using here].

Tax cuts: the yellow line shows that government revenues from car-related taxes have come down significantly. Car sales went up a bit [at no time would Mr. Tønset or NRK at-large (dare to) speak about wages or tax rates in general].

We asked the Ministry of Finance for figures on how much less car taxes the government has collected in total in these years [note that the current Labour finance minister is the very same Jens Stoltenberg who, in 2007, was PM and introduced these policies in the first place (yes, that’s the same politico™ who spent the time in-between gov’t positions as NATO’s secretary-general clown-in-chief)]:

If car taxes had been continued at 2007 levels, the state would have received around NOK 540 billion more revenue from vehicles in the period 2007-2025.

In addition, there is a loss of VAT revenue as a result of [new] electric cars being exempt from VAT.

The total [VAT] tax cuts for the period 2007-2024 is around NOK 100 billion. [note that these numbers are presumably nominal, but this is never said explicitly]

In total, tax revenues have been reduced by NOK 640 billion since 2007 [I’m in principle in favour of reducing gov’t intake™ by as much as possible, but that number is insane: in nominal terms, NOK 640b correspond to some US$ 60b; as always, the devil is in the details—that amount of NOK 640b for 2007-24 corresponds to about total central gov’t spending in 2007 (via Statistics Norway’s Statbank table 09481, 1978–2023)].

This is significantly more than all the money the government has spent on the development, operation, and maintenance of the railway in all these years [remember, ‘every trip counts’…; here follows a sidenote that pretends to help™ readers to put these numbers into context].

How much is NOK 640 billion?

NOK 640 billion is almost as much as the government took in in oil revenues in 2024. Here are a few more examples of what the government could have gotten for that much money.

• Significantly more than everything the government has spent on the development, operation, and maintenance of railways since 2007

• Three times what the Nordlandsbanen between Fauske and Tromsø will cost [that is the largest railroad boondoggle here: it’s the equivalent of the bridge to nowhere as that line will have no passengers ever, hence it’s the perennial infrastructure debate™ item: it’s largely not electrified and neither does centralised traffic control (CTC) exist: it’s simply too expensive; note that large sections of the line are single-track]

• Free [sic] annual bus, tram, and metro passes for 90 years for all residents of Oslo [I’m unsure if that takes into account demographic projections]

• Free electric bicycles for all residents of Norway

• 10 times more than the price estimate for a ferry-free E39 between Stavanger and Bergen [ah, we noted that automobile-related boondoggle not that long ago, too]

• Today’s toll revenues for 100 years

• 13 new government quarter [Regjeringskvaratlet in downtown Oslo, ]

• 20 new national hospitals

The figures are based on the latest available cost estimates and adjusted for inflation using Central Bank Norway’s inflation calculator.

Unsure How Big the Climate Effect Is

The question is how big a cut in greenhouse gas emissions we have received for the huge cuts in car taxes [that’s a good question, right? Let’s see how much bang for the buck we got…]

Passenger cars accounted for around 10 per cent of Norwegian greenhouse gas emissions in 2007 [why, oh, why, then, did the gov’t in its infinite wisdom start here and not, say, with the other 90% of Norwegian CO2 emissions?]

And according to Statistics Norway, emissions from passenger cars have been cut by over a third since then [well, improvements in ICE-propelled cars might also play a role, isn’t it? Are we any further disentangling that particular ball of hair?].

But exactly how much of this is due to electric car incentives and other cuts in car taxes is difficult to determine [nope, we ain’t].

The Ministry of Finance writes in an email that they do not have estimates of the emissions effect of the electric car policy alone [oh, look at that: the MoF lavishly spends but seemingly doesn’t give a shit of what the effects might be…]

Nor does the Ministry of Climate and Environment have figures for this and refers to [drum roll] Statistics Norway [the below statement is from the MoCE]:

The reduction in emissions is due to an increased proportion of electric cars and increased blending of biofuels.

It is not possible to say anything about how much the VAT exemption on electric cars has had an impact, since the various instruments work together.

In other words, the emission reductions from car traffic are not only due to low electric car taxes [I nominate Mr. Tønset for the Nobel Prize in logics].

They are also due to the inclusion of biofuels in petrol and diesel [no shit analysis, Sherlock].

Bewildering Policy

Robert Næss, Investment Director at Nordea [one of Norway’s largest banks], has advocated raising taxes on electric cars now [sure, the gov’t doesn’t know what happened when they cut taxes—let’s just raise them now and no longer care about how that may or may not work out: what could go wrong?]

He believes that the climate cuts are very small compared to what it has cost the state in lost tax revenues:

If we measure NOK 640 billion in relation to the number of kilometres driven and the amount of CO2 saved, it’s a very poor investment. You could perhaps have done it 20-30 times more efficiently in a different way.

Næss believes that buying climate quotas [certificates: another boondoggle that would, however, directly benefit Nordea and other financial institutions more directly, as opposed to tax cuts however insanely arrived-at] and investing more in public transport and electric bicycles would save more emissions:

Subsidising expensive cars that are actually luxuries, on which we used to charge more VAT, is a very strange policy [that may be true, that is, until and unless one is willing to consider the main beneficiaries of these tax cuts: white collar professionals who feel™ and vote lefty™, such as Mr. Stoltenberg and his Labour Party’s electoral base—but once one says that quiet part out loud, follow-up questions are inevitable…].

‘A lot of money’

The Norwegian Society for Nature Conservation [orig. Norges Naturvernforbund] is one of several environmental organisations that have applauded high taxes on CO2 emissions and tax exemptions on EVs.

‘It's a lot of money’, says Truls Gulowsen, head of the Norwegian Society for Nature Conservation, about the figures from the Ministry of Finance [no shit analysis, once again; funny that, they emerged in 1914/16 and, by 1939, had around 1,000 members before WW2—back then, their budget was NOK 3,000, of which a quarter (NOK 750) were state subsidies; by 1964, then crown-prince and current monarch Harald became an outspoken supporter; their annual reporting is very amateur-ish (to say the least), and while it lacks a proper listing of income vs. expenditures, in 2024 they received funding from, among other things, from the Environmental Protection Directorate, Oslo city gov’t, various financial institutions (banks), and foundations; needless to say, they are an inclusive™ institution].

However, Gulowsen believes [nothing beats cult-based thinking] that it has been an effective policy:

It’s an expensive climate measure when calculated per tonne, but it is an effective policy. We’ve seen that Norway has been the world’s most important test country for introducing electric transport. And it has succeeded [good luck introducing these insane spending measures in less-affluent countries].

[NRK] NOK 640 billion is considerably more than the government has spent on railways in the same years [that would be 2007-24]. What do you think about that?

It’s appalling, and it shows that we’ve spent much more on supporting private motoring than on providing public transport solutions [of course, it’s absolutely no problem for Truls Gulowsen and his ilk to hold two mutually exclusive stances at the same time]. In addition to what we’ve spent on electric car benefits, we’ve spent huge amounts of money on building new motorways, which has also made it more attractive to use a car instead of taking the train [that’s true; it’s also a fact that Norway, due to its comparatively late industrialisation, low development, and topography kinda ‘leap-frogged’ over almost the entire railroad-driven phase of industrialisation and, after WW2, jumped directly to the US-derived model of happy motoring plus air travel].

No Time For An Interview

[The above things are all peanuts, however insane they may sound, for the main leader™ responsible for this spending spree was Jens Stoltenberg, then PM and now head of the Ministry of Finance.] We wanted to ask finance minister Jens Stoltenberg, who was prime minister in 2007, whether cutting car taxes by NOK 640 billion has been a good climate measure.

But Stoltenberg was unable to find time for an interview on this subject within two weeks [gee, call me surprise (not): what a coward; it also goes a long way towards showing that those who govern™ are so far removed from any accountability].

Instead, state secretary Torgeir Michaelsen (Arbeiderpartiet) responded:

It’s obviously a lot of money when you have such powerful measures as we’ve had in Norway, which have had cross-party support for many years. I think we’ve got a more modern car fleet [as if private consumers wouldn’t have bought new cars once their old ones were no longer traffic-worthy…]. We've cut emissions from the car fleet, and that’s been the wish of an almost unanimous parliament [note how Michaelsen is saying a lot of words without answering the question (which he can’t as the MoF doesn’t have data—and neither do other gov’t institutions)].

[NRK] So that’s a good thing?

[Michaelsen] It has certainly worked. It’s up to future parliaments and future politicians to decide how this should be done in the future. But it has worked.

[There’s one more infographic showing Norway’s greenhouse gas emissions and climate targets, as per official data.]

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Bottom Lines

This is all so incredibly stupid, it boggles the mind that—despite the massive amounts of lying, obfuscation, and waste.

A few weeks ago, it turned out that the gov’t agency tasked with providing energy efficiency labels for Norway’s housing stock faked the numbers: even though real-world data (via ‘SMART metres’, mandated since 2017) is available, the model they used is way off the further down one goes the labelling hierarchy. The effect was a massive, organised, and sustained distortion of real estate prices—on top of the fact that it is now clear that the gov’t lied about these numbers, too:

The Greatest Grift of All (5): Norway's Gov't Faked Energy Labels for Houses

So, who still trusts these racketeers?

Still, we also know that those in favour of EV adoption have but one last card to play, which is also the most obviously authoritarian one:

100% EVs 'a Utopia', Leaving 'Banning' Gas and Diesel Cars the 'Only Option'

I’m unsure that, as history tells us, gov’t planning always fails to provide a more accurate measure of reality as opposed to free(r) markets, we’ve yet learned a damn thing from the history of the past 150+ years.

We note, furthermore, that the lowest form of intelligent life on planet Earth is—politicians, of course accompanied by their inevitable camp followers (prostitutes) in legacy media and academia.

The case-in-point here is the one thing that all these shady characters are loath to mention: what about the difference between nominal prices and inflation-adjusted ones?

This is where the rubber hits the road (pun intended):

• at the current (2024/25) exchange rate of about NOK 11 = 1 US$ or Euro, it looks as if prices for new cars have fallen relative to 2007.

• inflation in 2007 (that would be before the ‘Great Recession’) was in the 1.4-1.9% range (annually)

• as per Statistics Norway, inflation remained relatively low; between 2013–22, inflation was higher for low-income households due to their consumption patterns (e.g., higher spending on necessities like food and electricity (source; note that this squarely points to the highly regressive nature of consumption taxes like VAT, i.e., the lower your income, the higher one’s indirect tax burden)

• consumer price index (CPI) growth peaked at 5.8% in 2022 annually, the highest since 1988, driven by high electricity and fuel prices (which, in turn, rendered esp. necessities way more expensive, relatively speaking, for low-income households); by late 2023, CPI growth had come down to 4.8% (annually)

• CPI fell to 4.5% by February 2024; as I write this, inflation is around 3% (May 2025), with forecasts predicting a decline to 2% by 2029

So, how have wages held up in light of these inflation data?

• 2015–2023: virtually no real wage growth occurred due to inflation outpacing nominal wage increases. Nominal wage growth in 2023 was 5.5%, but with CPI at 5.8%, real wages slightly declined (source 1; source 2)

• 2024: nominal wage growth was 5.2%, with CPI at 4.5% early in the year, yielding real wage growth of about 1.9%, the highest in over a decade. Forecasts predict real wage growth of ~1.5% annually through 2027 (source 1; source 2)

Basically, from 2007 to 2025, cumulative CPI inflation is approximately 53% in Norway (aligned with U.S. estimates and SSB’s indication of higher inflation in recent years; source).

Persistently high inflation ate up most nominal wage gains (or worse) since 2007. In nominal terms, average monthly wages in Norway increased from some NOK 22K (2007) to NOK 71K (Q1 2025), about a 85% increase—yet cumulative inflation (up 53%) and a drastically weaker Norwegian crown meant stagnant to falling wages (depending on income levels).

So, who benefits from the massive tax cuts for EVs?

Well, not the gov’t budget or the average taxpayer.

Those who most benefitted where the upper middle-classes who could afford™ (debt-finance) more expensive EVs in the first place (it’s a quite open secret that the working poor can’t afford the car loan rates for new EVs, hence they overwhelmingly buy used ‘regular’ cars).

Back in 2007, a Volkswagen Passat (NOK 420,000, about US$ 71K) was affordable with ~12.7 months of average earnings (NOK 33,000/month).

A 2024 Volkswagen ID.4 (NOK 399,900, some US$ 36-38K) requires ~6.6 months of earnings (NOK 60,960/month), reflecting improved affordability due to EV incentives and wage growth.

At the same time, prices went up considerably, which makes it very much obvious that the majority of ‘regular’ people (middle class) can barely afford the car loan rates right now (which often come on top of mortgage payments).

So, in the final analysis, the above piece could have been so much, much more—about inequality, the myth of debt-based prosperity, the inequities of the Norwegian body politic, and, of course, the over-arching problem of flying blind while spending as if there’s no tomorrow.

I submit that these essentials aren’t that different from other Western countries.

I suspect to be afraid, very afraid if when ‘something’ breaks, it’s increasingly likely to have massive expectable—and a ton of unexpected as well as un-anticipated—consequences.

Stay frosty. And let’s throw these incompetent bums out before they ruin yet more.