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How Norway became a world leader in EV sales, and where it goes from here

OSLO, Norway — A silent revolution has transformed driving in Norway. Eerily quiet vehicles are ubiquitous on the fjord-side roads and mountain passes of this wealthy European nation of 5.3 million. Some 30 percent of all new cars sport plug-in cables rather than gasoline tanks, compared with 2 percent across Europe overall and 1-2 percent in the U.S. As countries around the world — including China, the world's biggest auto market — try to encourage more people to buy electric cars to fight climate change, Norway's success has one key driver: the government. It offered big subsidies and perks that it is now due to phase out, but only so long as electric cars remain attractive to buy compared with traditional ones. "It should always be cheaper to have a zero emissions car than a regular car," says Climate and Environment Minister Ola Elvestuen, who helped push through a commitment to have only zero-emissions cars sold in Norway by 2025. The plan supports Norway's CO2 reduction targets under the 2015 Paris climate accord. To help sales, the Norwegian government waived hefty vehicle import duties and registration and sales taxes for buyers of electric cars. Owners don't have to pay road tolls, and get free use of ferries and bus lanes in congested city centers. These perks are being phased out in 2021, though any road tolls and fees would be limited to half of what gasoline car owners must pay. Gradually, subsidies for electric cars will be replaced by higher taxes on traditional cars. Registration tax on new cars is paid on a sliding scale with a premium for the amount of emissions produced. Elvestuen pledges that the incentives for electric vehicles will be adjusted in such a way that it does not scupper the 2025 target. "What is important is that our aim is not just to give incentives," he says. "It is that we are taxing emissions from regular cars." Using taxes to encourage consumers to shift to cleaner energy can be tricky for a government — protests have erupted in France over a fuel tax that hurt the livelihood of poorer families, especially in rural areas where driving is often the only means of transportation. In the U.S, some would like to see the tax credit on EVs and hybrids eliminated while others would extend it. In this sense, Norway is an outlier. The country is very wealthy after exporting for decades the kind of fossil fuels the world is trying to wean itself off of. Incomes are higher than the rest of Europe, as are prices.

New Lotus SUV could be based on Volvo architecture

Last year, Chinese carmaker Geely upped its stake in Lotus to a majority, recently investing more money into the British brand. Now, talking with Automotive News, CEO Jean-Marc Gales says Geely has approved three new models: two sports cars and the third an SUV. The sports cars will be announced later this year, and they will reach production in 2020. The last time a properly new Lotus debuted was in 2009 with the Evora, so a decade later new products are certainly due. But what about that SUV? Autocar says that since Geely also owns Volvo, that makes it possible for Lotus to base the SUV onto the Volvo SPA platform, which is also used in the XC60 and XC90. The choice of platform would mean the SUV would have to be a four-cylinder model, but that's nothing new to Lotus. It could even use Volvo's "Twin Engine" hybrid setup, which would mean a power output of over 400 horsepower as stock, and that with Lotus' eagerness for lightness could be a potent combination. Autocar quotes Gales as saying, "It will go round bends like nothing else in its segment." The target weight for the approximately Porsche Macan-sized SUV is under 2,000 kilos (4,400 pounds), and the Macan weighs 4244 pounds in 400-hp Turbo guise. The Lotus SUV is projected to hit the market in "about four years," and it's very likely to be built in China instead of Britain, as the Chinese market is very enticing — especially for this class of vehicle. The vehicles will still be designed at Lotus' Hethel HQ. Related Video:

Junkyard Gem: 1984 Volvo 242 DL

Volvo had tremendous success with the iconic 200 Series cars, selling them in North America from the 1975 model year all the way through 1993 (and if you count the Volvo 140, which was the same car from the A pillars rearward, the 240's history goes back to the middle 1960s). Nearly everybody who bought 240s on our continent did so in order to be safe and/or practical, which meant that the two-door version never sold anywhere near as well as its four-door and wagon brethren. Here's one of those rare 240 coupes (technically speaking, a two-door sedan), found in a San Jose car graveyard last winter. If you're going to be a stickler about the designation of this car as a two-door sedan and not as a coupe, you'll also want to call it by the name Volvo used when it was in the showroom: the 1984 Volvo DL. However, everybody in the Volvo world now prefers the original naming system that Volvo used for the 200s back home in Sweden, where you had 2 followed by a numeral indicating the number of engine cylinders and a numeral indicating the number of doors, with the trim-level code after that. So, what we have for today's Junkyard Gem is a Volvo 242 DL, i.e., the cheapest new 240 Americans could buy in 1984. You could get a turbocharged engine from the factory in the 1984 242, but this car has the ordinary naturally-aspirated 2.3-liter straight-four, rated at 111 horsepower. It also has the four-speed manual transmission with overdrive controlled by the button in the middle of the shift knob. Nearly 230,000 miles on the clock, which is decent for any 1980s car but not spectacular by Volvo 240 standards. Many Volvo enthusiasts prefer the smooth lines of the coupe to the stodgier sedans and wagons, and this one shows signs of ownership by someone who wasn't just about listening to NPR while driving safely to the natural-foods store. Sure enough, it has aftermarket springs and a non-factory rear sway bar. I wish I'd found these parts back in 2007, when I was helping to build a V8-swapped Volvo 244 road racer. The presence of the keys in a junkyard car, however, usually indicates that it was voluntarily let go by its final owner. Perhaps it was a dealership trade-in that proved to be impossible to sell due to a combination of three pedals, high miles, and lack of truck-shaped body. The interior looks like it might have been tolerable before it reached this place.