SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Many Norwegian fjords present similar difficulties to bridge builders, so instead the country's coastal population relies on ferries that link their often remote communities.
Each year, some 20 million cars, vans and trucks cross the country's many fjords on roughly 130 ferry routes.
Most of Norway's ferries run on diesel, spewing out noxious fumes and CO2.
But this is about to change.
Following two years of trials of the world's first electric car ferry, named Ampere, ferry operators are busy making the transition from diesel to comply with new government requirements for all new ferry licensees to deliver zero- or low-emission alternatives.
"We continue the work with low-emission ferries because we believe it will benefit the climate, Norwegian industry and Norwegian jobs," Prime Minister Erna Solberg said in a speech in April 2016, in which she vowed to help fund required quayside infrastructure.
Ferry company Fjord1, which operates the MF Norangsfjord, has ordered three fully electric ferries that are scheduled to enter active service on some of its routes in January 2018.
Norway has also been a strong adopter of electric cars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @12:44PM
Without trying to check your calculation, it makes conceptual sense to me. Purely in economic terms, electric (and hybrid) car payback is a function of mileage or use. Pay additional up front and slowly claw back the first cost on fuel savings. This ferry application is in use most of the day, much higher duty cycle than any typical car use, so it makes sense that the payback would be a few years, instead of 10+ years for a typical car. A bus or taxi duty cycle might be similar to the ferry application.
To add to a nearby post -- Norway uses hydroelectric for nearly all of their electricity and it appears they export surplus capacity. The ferry will be running on clean power -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Norway#Electricity_generation [wikipedia.org] This may explain why they are also early adopters of electric cars?