EV and battery thread, page-2232

I've got a newfound respect for the pop group A-ha.

"Norway’s electric car revolution began with the most unlikely of champions.Long before the country became the world-leader in battery vehicles, environmentalist Frederic Hauge had a chance encounter with Morten Harket - the lead singer for A-ha, the Norwegian pop group behind the 1985 hit Take On Me. The pair hit it off and took to the road in a converted Fiat Panda, hurtling through toll stations without paying.Fines came thick and fast but they refused to pay. The dumpy electric car was regularly impounded and put to auction for 200 Norwegian kroner - less than the cost of a penalty notice. With zero demand for a car with a range of just 45 kilometres, Hague and Harket were the only buyers to raise their paddle each time bidding commenced. The pair’s act of civil disobedience-cum-green activism generated a blaze of publicity and is credited with sparking a series of incentives which fuelled the battery boom. Toll charges were removed for electric vehicles in 1997, parking made free in 1999 and access to bus lanes granted in 2003.“I get happy in the morning when I drive and see all the electric cars,” Hauge says in an interview. “It shows that you can make a difference and it shows that offering carrots can really work.”"

https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/the-electric-car-revolution-putting-australia-and-the-rest-of-the-world-to-shame-20210930-p58w9s.html