Are you still going to claim that EVs (and, by implication, everything else) are "paid for with oil money"? A patently false statement?

That's my hope too. For now we've bought a used EV, there are hints that at some things will happen next year, or even more likely in 2028. If so, we'll upgrade.

So what you are saying is not about EVs, it's "Norwegians pay for everything they own with oil money"
Is that it? If so, you're 100% delusional. What an absurd thing to say.
For the record, 100% of my personal income comes from contracts with companies in other countries. Nothing from oil. Nothing my parents worked for came from oil either. The road infrastructure, the utilities (water, electricity etc) is all paid for not with oil money. The governmental income from oil is saved, what's used from that is a small (single-digit) percentage of the *profit* from those investments.

Nothing of that is "paying for those EVs", as you claimed. Please take the BS elsewhere.
Oh, and Denmark is at 80% or more EVs for new cars, are they "paid for with oil money" as well?

They do indeed have the best public transport compared to anywhere else. But that's not the reason. I enjoy the public transport in Japan very much, but if you don't live in a mega-city like Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya etc. you'll need a car almost all the time. I live in a semi-rural area and I use a bicycle for going shopping and the like, but whenever there's something else and it's not on the route of the local bus then a car is the only option. Everyone I know in this whole region, the whole prefecture really, they drive *all the time*. Everyone have cars, and many have two cars. We tried to be without a car, that idea broke within a week.
The issue is actually the mindset and nothing else. EVs are considered a curiosity at most. People focus on popular cars like the hybrid models from Toyota, or the pure gasoline variants of "kei" cars (cheaper two- or four-people cars), and of those there are only two or three EVs on the market, the rest (a HUGE list) are all gasoline.

Benzin is not the same as benzen. Benzin typically contains some benzen as one of its components, so yes, sniffing benzin isn't good for you either. But we knew that already. Gasoline = benzin, so, same there.

What do you mean by ".. paying for those EVS with oil money."

How, exactly, does that work? If I buy an EV in Norway I'll use the exact same type of money I use for buying food. And the EVs aren't subsidized by the government, there's only a tax reduction (though not for the most expensive EVs). That doesn't mean that the theoretical reduction in tax income is compensated for by oil money if you study the national budget details. The other incentives are elsewhere - reduced tollbooth payments doesn't affect the national budget, and the rigth to drive in taxi/bus lanes don't either (and in any case, those incentives are gone or about to be gone in several parts of the country).

TL;DR: EVs are not paid for by oil money.

I recently sold my house and moved to a small apartment. Good view from up here, but I don't have a garden anymore. There's a garage at the bottom floor. Everyone who wants a charger can get one, and from what I can tell more than half of the parking spots have already got a charger. Cars driving out from the garage is a quiet affair.

"where even the Japanese can't compete"
Well, that's not really because they can't, it's because of an absent EV market in Japan. It's currently at 3% of new sales, i.e. almost non-existing. It's way easier to get to see an imported Mini Cooper than an electric vehicle. Japan, for various reasons (including extreme promotion by Toyota) is still much more focused on hybrids.
There are a few EVs now on the market, the exception here is really the Nissan Leaf which has been sold for years. Japan will introduce a few new EVs next year and later, but it'll be a while before their home market will ask for EVs.

- Norway (pop. 5.6 million) 98.6% of new sales
- Denmark: (pop. 6 million) > 82% of new sales
- Sweden: (pop 10.6 million) 51% of new sales
- Finland: (pop 5.6 million) 51% of new sales

It's not a special case anymore, that's the point really (incentives are changed etc). What people want to drive are EVs. It's so much cheaper to drive, even during the wild electricity price fluctuations (due to being price-wise connected to EU), but apparently for other reasons too. Including that about 500 models now have 4-wheel drive, which is pretty useful in a country with months of winter.
When I last rented a car the available options were nearly all EV.

I checked and in Norway 98.6% of new cars sold in September were EV (in some regions 99%). Lots of trucks driving locally in the cities (e.g. rather large garbage trucks) are electric as well.

There's stil a tax difference in bying EVs compared to other types of cars, but the advantage is less than before. Some of the other advantages (e.g. cheaper toll booths) are also getting removed. People buying cars now simply consider EVs to be what they want to drive (at least when I ask.. so, that's anecdotal of course).

Looking at dealerships, the range of cars they sell are for some brands nearly entirely EV. Toyota, for example.. nearly all EV. Which says something, when in Japan Toyota doesn't advertise any EV models, except a single not very useful car which isn't even made by Toyota (as I mostly live in Japan I researched all of this)

As for range.. Norway is narrow, but long. Driving from one end to the other is not done in a day, to put it that way. But does that matter for people driving cars? Even for those who actually do that, e.g. during vacations, there are charging stations everywhere. The local shopping mall where I'm at right now has 16 chargers, and across the road there are another dozen or so chargers at a fuel station (diesel, petrol/gasoline, electric).

In Japan I'm buying a second hand EV. For those who actually have them (not many in Japan), there's fortunately a common V2H (Vehicle To Home) standard here, unlike in some other countries where there are competing standards, or standards haven't been made yet. So this EV will be connected to my house and we'll use the battery bi-directionally. Using solar panels on the roof makes this complete. Those(*) with EVs and houses quite often end up with this setup over here.

(*) EVs aren't that common in Japan actually.. see what I wrote about Toyota, for example. EVs are just 3% of new sales in Japan.. that's tiny. On the other hand hybrids are everywhere. They're slow on the uptake over here, but at least when they do they do it well, ref. the V2H setup which doesn't have many pitfalls, unlike in aforementioned Norway.

Absolutely. Can't agree more. If you keep remembering everything perfectly then you'll have problems. I know a guy with extremely high IQ and a memory to match. He doesn't forget anything. Read a textbook, leave it at home. Cite any page. Anyway - and here's the crux - if there's, say, a slightly heated technical discussion at work, it's like *now* forever after. A couple of years later? Same. Which means that after a while there aren't many people left he can really work well with.. the heated discussion never mellows in his mind.

And the key to a happy marriage is very much that you forget the inevible fights and the mistakes and errors and accidents of the other.

It's *necessary* to forget. Sometimes you'll wish that you could remember some particular details about something, but how on earth are you supposed to do that kind of selection with this thing promoted here?

What I've been doing for a long time:

- Actively going to concerts
- Buying CDs (and often directly from the artist after concert. But I also buy them the normal way)
- Occasionally buying downloadable music from various sources. No streaming.

I sometimes do use Spotify, mostly when searching for stuff.

One must wonder why there's a need for many fees at all.. and there aren't, of course. As someone who doesn't live in the US, my ISP bill has a single number: A fixed number, the price I pay for 1Gb/1Gb per month. That was the advertised price, that's what's on my bill, and the only additional writing on the bill is that N percent of that is VAT (Value Added Tax).

Mine is 20 years old. At this point I'm paying whatever it costs to keep it in shape. I never even blink. Fortunately the local dealer is very good and never cheats me on repairs or price. I never want to lose this car.