Yup. No one cares. Short term thinking. I just don't get it.
Norway Hits Record 98.6% EV Share in April
- Thread starter Astro_Guy
- Start date
- Status
Interesting, I think well balanced, for those who would read the entire story on Norway. For example, a full 25% of Norways population left the country for North America in the 19th and 20th centuries. Im not saying it's a bad place but this image of "utopia" by some is hype. They have their issues as well, besides the high taxes you pay, other things are good.
After a pretty much glowing story of Norway, this is at the end.
"All the while, the shrinking of public budgets is a prevalent political issue as oil revenues decrease and the Norwegian population ages. The country’s absorption capacity has increasingly been discussed as a major challenge to the treasured Norwegian welfare model. Universality is at stake, and the system may be moving towards one that is more conditional and contribution-based, which could lead to a more layered and unequal social model."
I found this informative and educational,
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/norway-immigration-welfare-state
_______
After a pretty much glowing story of Norway, this is at the end.
"All the while, the shrinking of public budgets is a prevalent political issue as oil revenues decrease and the Norwegian population ages. The country’s absorption capacity has increasingly been discussed as a major challenge to the treasured Norwegian welfare model. Universality is at stake, and the system may be moving towards one that is more conditional and contribution-based, which could lead to a more layered and unequal social model."
I found this informative and educational,
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/norway-immigration-welfare-state
_______
and ?
You believe pulling one quarter from years of the Bz being in last place is scientific analysis? Toyota upped their game with one vehicle and poor margins which lost boatloads of money on the Bz and continue to lose massively knocking "30% off the transaction price."
"Toyota has been lathering on above-average discounts to help sell bZs and gain market share, Valdez Streaty said.
“I think that's their strategy: We want to buy share. And it’s working,” she said. In February, Toyota bZs were selling with incentives worth 30% of their average transaction price, according to Cox’s data.
https://insideevs.com/news/791982/toyota-bz-ev-sales-q1-2026/
Let's point out that GM hands down blows Toyota away in USA EV sales. Im sure you are aware, it's right on the chart without picking apart model by model.
Last edited:
GON
$175 Site Donor 2026
If a single person in the western world cared, an immediate ban of all imports from China would be administered.
There is a real information operations war going on, and the CCP is undoubtedly executing flawlessly.
Owen Lucas
$100 Site Donor 2023
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2021
- Messages
- 4,862
It's survival in many regards. Look at developing nations; burning dung and wood for heat. Natural gas and oil might as well be nuclear power to them.
Even for 1st world nations, over-regulation of environmental standards is taking, in my understanding, away from progress and reasonable costs.
Of course don't dump garbage in rivers and have some guard rails but trying to reduce carbon emissions at massive scales, or else, doesn't work IRL without massive penalties to end users IMHO.
China, despite all it's green energy pollutes more than multiple countries combined. If you remove carbon generation from one country, i.e. factories etc, it's offset in China with manufacturing said product there with even less guard rails. It's a complicated topic and that's jus tmy understanding.
It's higher than that now. The Nordic countries are known for their happiness, true, but also crazy high prices.
For example, Denmark has a 150% import tax on vehicles. Buy an E-class Mercedes in the US for $80K - and in Denmark, it's $200,000 because of that tax.
So, what do Danish and Norwegian NATO officers do in the US? Buy a Harley, a luxury car, a big SUV and a boat - all things they couldn't afford to own at home - and enjoy them, all while bragging about how much better their country is than the USA.
Take it with a grain of salt.
Well, also corporate greed/profits wanted to by-pass American workers too. When Sam Walton to died, Walmart ditched its buy american policy in the 1990's and started importing from where ever is cheapest, and many tech companies moved production there too.
It seems it was relatively easy for companies to buy and elect politicians, and media corporations, to promote people saving some money and not pay for goods made down the road with "high union wages" of their "lazy" neighbors. Canada followed along too...
In hindsight, it would've been good to have some informed public debate on what kind of economy this is going to create? Do we want to lose manufacturing capacity/knowledge? Do we want to concentrate wealth in the companies importing, or do we want to keep it distributed to our population?
Especially now with AI and robotics advancing, if we don't have a serious debate about how we want society to function, the billionaires and the top few percent, seem quite eager to line their pockets in exchange degrading the quality of life for the other 98% of us.
Importing from China has nothing to do with corporations greed.
Let’s put that to rest. As Americans, we love to blame others.
Ourselves as American voters want less expensive goods at any cost.
As obnoxious as that sounds someone please create a case that the vast majority doesn’t want this.
We constantly go for well-made products at less expensive prices. If we blocked ourselves off from the world, we would not advance.
Let’s put that to rest. As Americans, we love to blame others.
Ourselves as American voters want less expensive goods at any cost.
As obnoxious as that sounds someone please create a case that the vast majority doesn’t want this.
We constantly go for well-made products at less expensive prices. If we blocked ourselves off from the world, we would not advance.
I guess they did it because they can? Owning some expensive toys is nice, and they had the opportunity here, so why not?
Do you think they wanted their country to be exactly like the US? I think they would say there are some good things, but also there is room for improvement. The same goes for Norway, or any country of course.
In general those countries have decided, that wealthy people/businesses can pay a bit more tax on luxury import goods, to make their society have a bit more equal opportunities, and a higher minimum standard of life?
GON
$175 Site Donor 2026
Sleep with someone who wants to cut your throat - sooner or later more likely than not end up dead.
Just look at what happened and continues to happen in the West Philippine Sea. An adversary of Philippine sovereignty is inserting poison on the reefs Filipinos use for fishing/ basic substance. Slowly driving Filipinos off of their waters. Yet, never reported by the mainstream media... Maybe (temporary) broadcasting NBA games in China is more important to USA media than reporting on what is going on in the West Philippine Sea.
Last edited:
slo town
$200 Site Donor 2026
JHZR2
Staff member
At least the north of Norway had near free electricity for a long time. That’s why they became popular. Touring the country and staying in Airbnb homes with locals hosting really gives some insights.maybe they just like and prefer EVs?
Did anyone ever stop and think some may just want an EV because it's an EV?
Electricity was cheap, fuel is expensive. So they could charge PHEV and evs.
Last I had talked with locals, they were actually concerned and upset, because Norway was going to start to push more hydro to the rest of the continent. That meant that their near zero rates were going to rise to market rates. So they were very concerned.
Seems like it was a bit of a trap. Now they’re stuck with the bed they made…
If you consider a basic car, food, or clothing to be luxury goods - sure, then tax them. Maybe the E-class (mid tier basic car there) came across as luxury goods...it's not how they view it.
That 150% applies equally to a Corolla, or a Skoda, as it does to a Mercedes.
So, our Danish Colonel, a real person, my neighbor, who drove a Jag, while his wife had a Range Rover, and had three Harleys in the US, has a VW Golf back home. She doesn't get a car.
Don't kid yourself, they tax everyone through VAT, even their poorest are paying 23% more for goods through VAT. You have a choice, after all, to not buy the clothing. It's a choice to buy or not.
Food is more than double what it costs here - but you don't have to eat, right? That's a choice, too.
I mean, food is a luxury, isn't it? So, yeah, let the rich pay more...
Cadillac sold a record number 170,000 plus ev's in 2025. 75% were previous Tesla, BMW and other luxury vehicle owners.
"Strong Performance in Canada: GM has, at times, outsold Tesla in Canada, holding a ~20% EV market share in Q1 2026.".
I know many wax poetic about Tesla but they aren't a start up anymore. Their constant delays, lack of product diversity, and lies about being "fully autonomous " which won't likely happen with cameras is taking its toll.
@pbm @Astro14 My first visit to Sweden was back in '92. I traveled from Frankfurt to Stockholm with a Swedish colleague who was living and working in Germany at the time. Prior to boarding we stopped in the duty free shop where he bought a bottle of Johnny Walker Black. Then he gave me a puzzled look and asked if I was going to buy anything. Upon learning that I wasn't we returned to the Scotch aisle and he purchased another bottle for me to carry through customs. Apparently Scotch was so expensive in Sweden that any opportunity to get some duty free needed to be taken advantage of.
My Canadian friend in Florida tells me about the sky high prices of beer, spirits and wine up there. He loves his winters in Florida for the weather and inexpensive alcohol.
It's a different place? They have 6M people on some small islands, with a tiny fraction of natural resources per capita as the US? A high consumption economy/society isn't really a good option for them? It just flushes capital out of their economy to somewhere else, and creates garbage and waste locally? Having a walmart full of untaxed cheap junk is not really benefitting anyone in the long term, except the chinese factory owner, and the Waltons...
They have good public transit, and I'm sure your friend could afford another car, or a much nicer one, but found it wasn't worth the expense? Having an economy that relies on cheap fuel, that is an import, would make them weaker as a nation?
Even though food is expensive there, where do you think the percentage of kids are going hungry is greater?
Is having a lower tax on a Jag, and 3 Harleys more important than having free tuition for the smartest kid in the class to become a doctor, even though he lives on the wrong side of the tracks, with poor parents? America says yes, and Denmark says no?
I guess if most people in Denmark wanted it to be different, it would be different, and maybe the smart and successful people there, can't afford the same goodies they could in the US(due mostly to the realities of their geography), but there are other benefits.
Wow. So many misconceptions, so many gross over generalizations, and so many missed obvious points - all rolled into one post.
Denmark is approximately 6 million people, with remarkably consistent terrain, a very small land area, and remarkable homogeneity among the population.
If I had 6 million Vikings, who all looked the same and all thought the same, I could get a lot of things done that the Vikings would approve.
By the way, that’s what he used to call them.
Now I compare and contrast that with a country that’s over 60 times larger, with widely varied terrain, and a much more diverse population, and a much greater diversity of political thought, not to mention ethnicity, climate, and a variety of other factors.
And so you are comparing apples to oranges.
When you have a small, homogeneous, population, you get a homogeneous, political outlook, and they have crafted the country in the image that they want, but you are not gonna get that kind of homogeneity, whether of thought, or ethnicity or political perspective or desire or values in a country like ours.
They still have a monarchy, for example.
You make precisely the same mistake that the Danish Colonel did. You think their country is so much better. It is better if you happen to share their precise set of values. But they tax their poor, their lowest on the socioeconomic ladder pretty heavily.
We don’t.
And, I’m here to tell you, with two children who are actually doctors, that if you are the smartest kid in the class, tuition free options exist for you in this country.
I’ve told the story before, one of my son’s classmates at Harvard, went to the school absolutely free. Harvard paid for her room, board and tuition. Harvard paid for her books. Harvard paid for her living expenses in the form of a $300 a month stipend, and finally, Harvard bought her plane tickets to and from Wyoming, where she grew up on an Indian reservation. Smartest kid in class. Free tuition. At one of the world’s great universities - not a Scandinavian fantasy, but actual, practical, US reality.
What we don’t have in this country is free tuition for the person that wants to study something useless, or the child of privilege, who’s just marking time getting a degree. Those people typically pay, and the toxic combination of child entitlement and parental sense of obligation has driven tuition in this country to ridiculous, unsupportable levels.
Furthermore, while tuition is free in those countries, not everybody there has the option of going to college. You take a test when you’re in high school. If you’re smart, you get to go and if you’re not that smart, you don’t. They do have outstanding vocational schools for the kids who don’t do well on that test.
So, no, they don’t have free tuition for everybody, only the smart ones, the dumb ones get told they can’t go. I promise you that concept would not work in the US.
So, like the Colonel, you treat Denmark like it’s some sort of fantasy place where everything is perfect, but when you start peeling back the reality, it’s not as perfect as people in this country make it out to be, and they have made choices that not everyone in this country would accept.
Last edited:
You don’t have to tell me about that. China is our arch enemy and a communist one of that.
I know all about the Philippines and we were on one of the disputed islands/ areas not too long ago
It’s horrible what they do to the Philippine fisherman, the constant harassment
Any statements you see from me that you think otherwise are misinterpreted words.
I am not a hypocrite, many people who talk down China have an entire household full of their products. That is why I post the things I do.
Everybody in this forum probably feels the same way about China and they’re very outspoken about it, but they use their products each and every day. Another thing I will tell you right now. If the cars sold here, you would see them all over the roads.
More or less what I’m saying, if people looking to talk to talk, they should walk the walk.
GON
$175 Site Donor 2026
The main stream media might label what is happening to the Filipinos that depend on the Philippines territorial water as harassment. It is anything but.
Harassment is when union workers scream at scabs entering a factory. Poring poison in the water, killing the fish, killing the reefs is not harassment. Significantly more heinous and evil act. Some might label it silent genocide.
- Status
