Electric vehicles in north and south of Europe

Electric vehicles in all their kinds and systems available are expensive. To buy. Also, as conventional combustion engine driven vehicles need their fuel stations the EVs also need a certain infrastructure for battery charging. Norway soon became the number 1 Tesla market. Spain on the other side has so far boasted more modest numbers in the sales of vehicles with this kind of technology.

While an improved environment and elimination of emissions causing the greenhouse effect on our planet are the main motives for finding alternatives to diesel and gasoline driven vehicles, there now are many alternatives. Trucks and buses driven bus natural gas, compressed or liquefied, even from renewable energy sources, are very common, especially in southern Europe where Spain is outstanding.

Now we even see hydrogen, fuell cell, coming on with heavy political and commercial interest behind. The Spanish government just forecast a total of 8000 hydrogen vehicles, including 150-200 fuel-cell buses, by 2030. However, the environmental benefits of these alternative propulsion fuels, depend on how the are produced. The grey (dirty) hydrogen being produced by oil and gas, is for instance not as good as the green (clean) hydrogen made with the help of non-contaminating hydroelectric-, solar- or wind- power.

Remember that a fuel-cell vehicle is just another kind of electric vehicle, as the hydrogen is the energy source for the battery and electric motor.

Fiscal incentives have clearly helped many Norwegians deciding to by the most popular Tesla or Nissan Leaf. Subsidies and tax advantages and the possibility to drive in the buslanes, or not paying toll on the tollroads, have certainly been attractive motivators.

In Norway most people live in standalone houses where the installation of plug-in contacts for a HEV or a EV is an individual decision, quite easy to handle. In Spain most people live in blocks of flats in cities, where such electric charging points become a community decision and not at all that straight forward.

Have you been to Oslo the last decade? You might have seen that downtown, the charging poles for EVs are more visible and extended than the old parking meters...

Heavy trucks and buses are also very, very costly vehicles in their hybrid electric or fully electric versions. The countries where they have got their first presence are those that offered subsidies for their acquisition, f.ex. HEV buses in the USA. And these first experiences were made with buses, especially the longer, 18-meter transit buses. Electrified trucks have been lagging behind, but are now also showing a certaing variety in prototypes and initial series of production.

While trucks in Spain performing heavy duty municipal services like refuse collection, have long run on environmentally friendly compressed natural gas, CNG, for decades. Now we also see more examples of electrified trucks in these services.

The relatively young players like Volta Zero (possibly to be assembled in Barcelona), or Nikola Motors with for instance heavy vehicle Nikola Tre, BEV (battery electric) of FCEV (fuel cell electric), these are more targetting transport and distribution markets. However, most other traditional truck OEMs have also developed their EV and soon even more FCEV too. And suppliers like ZF or Allison Transmission serve the chassis makers electric drivelines for hybrid and fully electric solutions.

Trolley-buses and trams are fully electric public transportation of passengers since long

The future looks promising for those looking for alternative energy solutions inr personal passengers cars, and now also even for the professional businesses in heavy transport of goods and passengers.

Stay tuned for more news on these matters,