Christina Bu, the secretary-general of the Norway Electric Vehicle Association, is in our newspapers and on our TVs and radios espousing Norway's 50 per cent ownership of EV/hybrid cars.

Norway taxes large, polluting private vehicles heavily, and subsidises the purchase of electric vehicles.

What she doesn't explain is that 98 per cent of their electricity is generated by hydro, and that Norway is the third-largest exporter of natural gas and exports large quantities of crude oil.

Their revenue from exporting gas and crude oil is 442 billion Krone (NZ$75 billion), and that income largely subsidises electric vehicles and social outcomes.

Norway has held its sovereign assets unlike New Zealand who, in my opinion, sold its citizens down the river by divesting our rich assets for short-term gain.

Norway's management of its huge sovereign wealth is a measure of strong, political and financial ethics over time.

M J Anderson, Pyes Pa.