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Comment by gspr | Hacker News Reader

> And places you can park your car outside your house, unlike the UK.

This is a common misconception that probably stems from Norway's low population density. However, much of the country is very sparsely inhabited, and the urbanization levels are almost exactly the same as the UK's [1]. A large proportion of the population lives in multi-unit homes with limited street parking, at comparable densities to the UK.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_sovereign_stat...

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Interesting.

So why does it work for Norway but not in the UK? My options are:

1. Drive to the local high power charging station and pay more than a tank of petrol for half the range.

Oh that's it.

Shared (either private or public) parking very often has chargers. You swipe a tag to sort out billing by user. The cost at these chargers is typically electricity cost + maintenance. Plus lots of employers offer charging at work (usually not free, but the convenience is the point).

Edit: This can be read as me telling the other guy how he should sort things where he lives. That wasn't the intention - I'm describing the situation here in Norway.

All vandalised, not operational or permanently busy here. Not offered at work. Plus I work from home anyway.

Sorry, I didn't mean to say that that's how you should do it. I was explaining what the situation is like here in Norway.

Yeah I get that. I'm mostly berating my own country.

The UK hasn't bothered to invest in the infrastructure. Simple as that.

So my Renault Megane E-tech consumes around 18kWh / 100km during the summer. The previous generation Renault Megane with a petrol engine consumes[1][2] around 7L / 100km.

Prices fluctuates but it's been roughly steady at around 6 NOK / kWh using a supercharger[3] and 21 NOK / L at the pumps.

So to drive 100km it would cost me about 108 NOK for my EV, or 147 NOK if I had the petrol car.

Now, this changes dramatically if you can charge at home. Even during winter with high prices you'll typically not pay more than 3 NOK / kWh and typically around 1 NOK / kWh, so a fraction of the price for petrol.

edit: I should note that coops and similar can get up to 30% in subsidies from the gov't to install chargers in the common parking areas[5], so not just single home owners that can enjoy charging at home.

[1]: https://www.auto-data.net/en/renault-megane-iv-phase-ii-2020...

[2]: https://www.automobile-catalog.com/make/renault/megane_4gen/...

[3]: https://elbil.no/dette-koster-hurtiglading/

[4]: https://no.globalpetrolprices.com/Norway/gasoline_prices/

[5]: https://www.klimaoslo.no/tilskudd/ladeinfrastruktur-til-bore...

Ignoring the cost, do you have a parking garage with your rental apartment? Or street parking? My problem here is _where_ to charge, much more than what it would cost. And by "charging at home" I am not limiting it "your own garage, with your house" - anything where you typically park and don't have to run out at midnight to park somewhere else. Convenient enough, so to say.

I currently have my own garage where I can charge, but the previous coop were installing chargers in the shared parking area, so if I had stayed there I could have charged there.

Downtown the municipality has added a lot of curb-side chargers, however pricing isn't very favorable as you have to pay for parking in addition to charging. It was a good deal for a while, not so much anymore. In general parking downtown is hard to find and expensive so not very fun, including for those who live there.

Thanks. Yeah my circle of friends is split on "can I charge at home: yes/no" - how absolutely surprising.

Definitely infrastructure investment, here in downtown Reykjavik I park my electric car on the street and there are four regular and one fast charger spots (each with multiple chargers) within easy walking distance of my house. Charging is cheap and convenient which is definitely what's needed to make electric cars viable.

A few reasons that might change soon:

1. Higher rate of VAT on fast chargers than at home charging

2. (Not) Allowing fast chargers to qualify for money ringfenced to encourage biofuels

3. Taxes intended to clean up energy that made sense when coal was used to generate most electricity which should now be rebalanced onto gas/petrol.

Also bear in mind that Russian warmongering escalated the gas price which increased the electricity price and only homes got the price cap protection.

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