Death to the ute as Scandinavian cool dictates future

A Model S electric car of US car maker Tesla leaving a Tesla service center in Oslo, Norway.

Norway is the favourite flight-of-fancy destination for electric-vehicle advocates because years of preferential taxation and other schemes mean they are incredibly popular.

The tiny Scandinavian nation buys about a third of all the battery cars bought in Europe. Sometimes a Tesla tops the charts. Most of its electricity generation is suitably green, too, thanks to hydro power.

But Norway is the exception that proves the rule. Most nations spend squillions on incentives and tilt the playing field only to find buyers still baulk. Even optimists in the US and Europe expect lower take-up by 2030 than the ALP’s goal.

There’s little to suggest how that figure was reached, or why that particular target is desirable. By then, there will be a lot more EVs in showrooms — with as many as 70 new models over the next three years — but little to suggest our buying habits will change. In a market of 1.1 million new cars a year, only a tiny fraction are EVs.

Among those new cars, few if any will cater to our favourite vehicle format, the ute. That rules out almost a fifth of the market straight away. Of the rest, the leading lights will be luxury cars.

Without subsidies, EVs will be beyond the wallets of most buyers. Provide incentives, and much of the money will go towards expensive models adding to multi-car garages. To be successful, an EV has to substitute for a vehicle in use, not become a tech-head toy.

It’s unlikely, either, that by 2030 our energy generation will be anything like as green as Norway’s or that we will have discovered a huge oil field to pay for the scheme. The view from the fjords is delightful, but as the old joke about a traveller asking directions of a bumpkin local goes, “you can’t get there from here”.

A Model S (L) and Model X (R) electric cars of US car maker Tesla parked on a parking in Oslo, Norway.