Electric cars for the rich?

Norway is a small country off somewhere above the top edge of the map. But there is one respect where it is huge. That is in the context of electric cars. In 2019, there were more than twice times as many "plug-in" cars (electric vehicles, EVs) than petrol/diesel cars. This is of course the result of government policy over many years, to promote "zero-emission" cars. The target is that in five years, 2025, all new cars sold in the country should be electric.

Controversy: are EVs bad for you?
But of course, that costs money. The loss in revenue for all EV measures has been calculated to some €200 million a year, and many see this as a subsidy from tax payers to EV owners. It has raised some controversy about whether this is justifiable, both economically and environmentally. The Michael Moore argument ("Planet of the Humans") that we should not support EVs because they are blacker than petrol since electricity comes from coal, does of course not wash here - we are 100 per cent hydro-electric - and is not true in the US either, I believe. But it highlights what is an actual dilemma: EVs are of course not fully green, because they have to be made, and it is true that more CO2 is emitted from producing an EV than a diesel/petrol car ("internal combustion", ICE)  primarily because of the battery. And longer range means automatically larger battery (not to mention the 2,5 ton e-Tron with its 95 kw battery, more than twice that of a new Leaf). So, there is a dilemma here. The very popular long-range EVs help the transition from petrol to electric. But at the same time, they are less environmentally friendly than the more modest cars which you may have to recharge more often because they have a smaller, but lighter battery.

EV batteries - they are bad for you

There was an argument in a web comment recently, which I thought was interesting to look into. It said, in essence, "... and you cannot defend, in environmental terms, to replace a petrol car that has 10 years life ahead of it, with a new EV" (because of the production emissions). That argument sounds plausible, but would it hold up? Now, a car with 10 years ahead of it (meaning, statistically about 8 years old) may well find a new owner, but let us ignore that and make the calculation simple: to be justifiable environmentally, the cost (in emissions) of producing the new EV must be lower than the CO2 that it replaces, i.e., that would be spent by driving the ICE for ten years. This production cost is in fact surprisingly large: just under 10 tons CO2 (for a car weighing a bit over one ton - the example is based on a 2019 Nissan Leaf). But an average ICE driving the average of 13,000 km a year, emits about 2.75 tons CO2 annualy. So the EV has saved its production cost already after about three and a half years - the argument is false. Nevertheless, for green purposes, the battery issue is definitely something that should be improved, by changing how they are produced, or improving reusage and recycling of the rare materials in the batteries. Of course, that is still a few years ahead for the current surge of EVs.

The social dimension: Should we subsidize electric cars for the rich?
The above argument is general. But we have also had a discussion from parts of the left wing in this country, which are irritated that wealthy Tesla owners get their toys subsidised by tens of thousands of euros of tax-payer money. That the green left supports this, shows their class affiliation, they whisper: the latte-drinking EV owners who have never set foot on a factory floor. The mentioned latte drinkers just sneer back. Yet, the argument is worth considering. It is based on these claims:

(1) Whatever you say, normal people do not drive EVs. They drive petrol or diesel cars. This is quite true. In spite of the surge in EV purchases these last two-three years, about 90 per cent of kms driven are done by petrol or diesel cars, statistics show. Also, the critics follow up: People with average income do not buy new cars, they buy used cars. Only the richest buy new cars, and used car sales are almost completely for ICE cars. That is also demonstrably true, about three of four cars sold are second hand, and they are overwhelmingsly petrol or diesel. But that is of course just an effect of the number of used cars there is on the market. The surge in EV adoption only took place a couple of years ago, and they have yet to replaced by their first-time owners. If the EV share of new purchases remains stable, used cars will eventually become EV or ICE in the same proportion as new cars today.

The red line is the market share.
Source: Elbil.no, from Public Car Registration

      However, that raises the reflection of how EV used car prices will hold up. All EV supporters claim that EVs have less wear and tear and require less service than ICEs, and will therefore keep their value longer (good for sellers, bad for buyers). On the other hand, it must remembered that an EV is basically a computer on four wheels. And we upgrade our PC not because it breaks down, but because the new one gives us functions we need or want. A new petrol car is more efficient, safer and better than a seven year old one, but it operates basically in the same way: It is mature technology, and functionally, you will find the old one just as useful as a new one. EVs are still in rapid development; every year introduces drastic new changes in functionality (as in battery management, e.g.) which may make a seven old machine dated almost like a seven-year old PC running Windows 7. Granted, an EV is a bit more expensive than a PC, so you would want to hold on to it longer, but the point is that this may lead to a more rapid decrease in value compared to a new one. Which is good for the buyer, and will help removing any "rich man's toy" image of normal, regular EVs.
      But anyway, in order to get EVs into the used car market, they first have to enter as new cars. So, the social differentiation we see today will disappear gradually over the coming few years.

(2) Nevertheless, we do know that even among new cars, the share of EVs follow the income distribution. A statistic (from 2018) shows that among new car buyers, the 25 per cent with highest income ("the wealthy"), 56 percent bought EVs, while among those with the lowest income, only 33 percent bought EVs. Furthermore, ICEs are more used than EVs, they have a higher number kms driven. Now that is very interesting, when we just postulated that a new EV has a similar or lower cost than a comparable petrol car. So economically, it should make more sense for the price conscious to go EV. Why do fewer in that group do so?

A car for the rich, paid by our tax dollars?

      The critics say this shows that the wealthy can afford to have two cars. They use an ICE by preference, but can afford to get an EV for the commute, in order to drive in the bus lane and escape the road tolls. EVs are just a toy and a status symbol for the rich. Teslas, gaah.
    It is also true that left-leaning people may gag over the number of Teslas on the streets of Oslo, because there are indeed a lot of them, and they are of course quite noticeable. Of course there is a status symbol show-off element here. However, it is not Teslas that actually dominate the purchase statistics, but normally-priced EVs that just look like other cars. You dont't notice them on the street unless you look closely.

Or just another car?

     It is more likely that these figures show a quite  different reality: People do not buy a second car because they are rich, but because they aren't. Two-car households are generally two-income households, i.e. families, and they more often than not have to calculate before they get the second car. They certainly could not afford to spend €20-30.000 on an EV just to save €2-3 on a road toll, that just does not make economic sense - particularly as these perks are progressively reduced. But families mostly do need at least one long-range car for holidays etc., and EVs (non-Teslas) have until these last couple of years not been seen as sufficiently practical for that. So of course their ICEs will get more mileage: Both cars are used equally for daily commutes, one by each spouse, and only the ICE will be used for longer family trips in weekends and holidays.

This may also help explain the sudden surge since 2018, in spite of the prospect of reduced perks: What is new in these last couple of years is the increased availability of models that may be called "affordable long-range" EVs. We always had the Teslas whith their 400 km or 500 km range, but at prices out of reach for most people. Now, there are several models with a range of 400 km or higher at a price below €35.000, going as low as the Renault Zoe (390 km) currently at €23.000. And, if we look at the best-selling models, these are precisely those that top the statistic: Zoe, Kona, Leaf, Ioniq (Soul and e-Niro were unavailable, but are in the same category). So, what we may be seeing is that more single-car households are now accepting such models as a realistic alternative for a car that they can also use for the longer trips, even though there are still issues left that favour combustion engines. If these practical aspects are solved in the time to come, these single-car households with moderate income will also increasingly choose an EV over an ICE. 

     Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) are also an alternative as "both commute and weekend" car, but the market share for PHEVs has stood still around 15 per cent since 2016, and actually took a small plunge in 2019, supporting the argument that long-range full-electric has taken over some of that segment in the last two years.
      In other words, what people want and will favour, are not flashy or star-in-the-eyes EVs, but practical tools that "can be used in the same way as a petrol car", just a normal car, at a price comparable to an ICE car. If we, as the critics suggest, cut the subsidies to raise EV prices by 50 per cent, these families would not drop the second car, they would buy two ICEs. Thus, the EV subsidy policies do favour ICE to EV replacement, which was the intention, and are to the benefit of normal families.

That does not deny that Tesla owners absolutely do benefit from the subsidies. But then the intention of the EV subsidies is not social equalization, it is to move from petrol to electric. A rich person will remain rich, and if we price a Tesla out of his range, he will not buy an e-Golf. He will buy a prestige ICE, a Porsche or similar. He may have bought a Tesla just because it is cool, that is all right, he will still help with the green change, whether that is his intention or not. The point here is that it is less and less true that EVs are cars for the rich. When they have reached more than fifty per cent adoption, they will be just cars like other cars, for normal people who drive cars.
       That said, it must of course be remembered we are talking about cars against cars. Clearly, both for green and red purposes, it is better that people do not drive a car, but use public transport, or walk or bike instead. All cars, including EVs, congest the roads, wear down the road surface to whirl up particles and require parking space. So EV subsidies should of course always go in tandem with increased financing of public transport and bike lanes. But those are seldom in competition, the political forces that support green cars generally also support green transport generally. More funding to both, and less to polluting!

The un-equalizer - not the car, but the garage?

However, there is another factor which is not so often considered and has a social aspect. In order to have a plug-in vehicle, you must have somewhere to plug it in. The most practical, and economical, solution is to plug it into a home charger which you have in your garage, or on a permanent parking space where you can install it. But many people who live in apartments do not have a garage. That does constitute a social differentiation. So, to combine zero emission conversion (for those who need cars) with social equality, this is an issue that should be addressed, so that everyone has equal access to EV as to petrol cars including low-cost charging, irrespective to what kind of house or flat they live in. That might become even more important as EVs begin enter the lower-priced used car market in a few years, so that you can choose practical EV cars even if you are in the lower price range. 

Incidentally, at the end: This last bit also concerns the idea that EVs are "urban vehicles", which the old 100-km EVs mainly were. But in the countryside, most people do own the property where they keep their car and can set up home charging. They would hardly need access to public charging in their own village, at least with a long-range car. So, in fact EVs may be easier to adopt outside the city than inside. But again, the type of car may be important. Pickups aren't that much used in Norway, but trailers are, at least for someone working on a farm, and none of the regular low-to-medium priced EVs today allow a trailer to be attached. That may be a marginal issue in the city, but possibly a priority for people who want to use their car for their farm work. So, we can only hope the producers begin taking that into account and focus on making practical family cars for the same kind of use as any other car.

In short, walking is best, biking is excellent, buses and trains preferable, but EVs are also a good thing for the reds as well as the green in the political landscape. 

Travelling green(-ish) at home and abroad

This blog has been mostly moribund over the last few years. It was established to talk about Macintosh matters, but I have let it slide. Maybe because there weren't that many entertaining crashes and collapses (oh, yes there were - like when I thought I could run my iMac from the hard disk only, and had to wait an hour just for it to boot. Or the mysterious Catalina bug that reportedly could delete gigabytes of mail). Anyway, it didn't happen and as you can see from the posts, I have on occasion also written about other stuff, like radios and ugly news sites.

But, since the blog exists, perhaps I could redirect it more widely to matters technological in general that happen to interest me. Maybe the reader is not interested, but I will just write what falls into my head, that is how the blog works. Mac stuff will still be there, but alongside whatever else I find interesting. But my approach will still be that of the fairly regular user, not the nerdy stuff I do not understand anyway. I am a normal professor of history from Bergen in western Norway, and this will be the world I see from my window.

Travelling green without going overboard
So, for the first instalment this year, I thought I would share some musings I have about choices we, both academics and others, will have to start making. As I write this, the world is locked down, borders are still closed and the air is cleaner that it has been for decades. But that, alas, will pass. Well, alas for the last part, the clean air. In a few years will look back at this time with the same nostalgia as the 1973 oil crisis, when the streets were also empty because driving cars were restricted or forbidden. We will be travelling again some day.

But the need to cut down unnecessary travel is something that has been discussed more seriously over the last years, and we have been asked by our institutions to reduce in particular air travel, for environmental reasons. I decided already a year or two back to refuse to go to Oslo just for a single meeting or one-hour examination, and demand videochats instead. Now, that is becoming even more practical since we all have had occasion to practice on Zoom and similar.

West Norwegian airplane

But we cannot stop travelling altogether, of course. It is just that when we do, we must, in addition to airfare prices and time wasted, also consider means of travel and environmental impact. When can we use a train, and when can we justify taking to the air? There are choices to be made, and your "green-ness" may direct your answer. I am now reflecting about my own choices, as a "reasonably green" person who accept a certain level of pragmatics, to go fully Greta Thunberg with a sailboat to America is beyond me. Your choices may differ from mine, however, I thought it might be useful to get some figures on the table to see what exactly we are talking about. What are actually the emission cost of travelling by this way or that way? Is it better to drive a car than taking a plane? Do propeller (turboprop) planes as we use locally in western Norway spew out less CO2 than jet planes (yes, they do, and by a pretty hefty margin on short hops). And, how much extra time will it actually take me to travel green?

So in a free moment, I started lookng at figures for my comparison. There are quite a few sites around that count carbon costs, and although they do not all match, and are of course based on averages and presumptions - clearly, the more people you put into a plane, the less is the emission per passenger (and did you know that narrow single-aisle planes are better than two-aisle planes?). However, I was able to set up this list, which is more or less consensual among the calculators:

Grammes of CO2 emitted per person per km travelled:

• Jetplane, international: 195 g.
• Jetplan, domestic 270 g. [much higher, because more fuel is spent on takeoff and landing, than on cruising]
• Propeller plane: 95 g.
• Car (average, diesel engine [ICE], driver only): 171 g.
• Bus / long-haul coach: 27 g.
• Train: 14 g. (West European average. In Norway, almost all trains are hydro-electric, so 0 in this country)
• Ferry w/car: 128 g. [passenger only: 18 g.]

Travel strategies, from Bergen to the west country
So, I began setting up scenarios and I how I would answer them. The presumption is a business / work trip for one full day away, and one person only (not holidays). For such a actual work period, I would imagine that spending 2-4 hours extra to travel green is quite reasonable, while spending a full travel day (8-9 hours) extra each way for one day at work would be excessive. Here, I do not consider economics, just time vs. CO2 emsissions. How do the destinations stack up?
      And here I must apologize for being very Norwegian. I write this in English, because the blog is in English, but probably those who know a bit about Norwegian geography will be at an advantage here. But hopefully, the basic thinking beneath this might be transferable to other situations.
   
Destinaton one: Bergen to Oslo.
Distance by car: 460 km. Options: 

• Plane: 81 kg. CO2; time spent 4 hours town centre to town centre [For planes I normally add 2 hours ahead of departure, and 1 hour after arrival]. 
• Car [ICE]: 79 kg. / 7 hours [Google maps suggestion] 
• Train 0 g / ca. 7 hours. 

      Sum: As Oslo can be reached by train, as the only destination discussed here, train will always win. The extra time expended is 3 hours, which is fully acceptable. There are even night trains, but depending on schedule, you may have to add a hotel night. But travel to Oslo will be by train.

Destination two: Bergen to Volda
[Volda, north of Bergen, has a college we often visit]
Distance by car: 352 km. Options:

• Coach bus: 10 kg / 8 hours
• Plane: 22 kg / 4 hours [Propeller plane]
• Car: 60 kg / 6-7 hours (depending on ferry)

      Now this is a rather more interesting example. The ICE car is clearly out, it emits almost three times as much CO2 as the plane! When I went last year, I found no direct bus, only an indirect one with a night stopover. So, then the plane was actually the best alternative. Now, the coach adds 4 hours - the limit I set for reasonable time waste - which makes it basically a full day's travel each way, and emits about half the CO2. Is that worth the extra time?
      However, we live in Norway! As everyone with any green awareness will know, Norway is a different planet, where everyone drives an EV (electric car)! Well, not quite. But electric is indeed an option for those who own one, and a clean one (0 emissions on our hydro-electric grid). The car can take a bit more direct route, so the time cost can be 2-3 hours only, and in particular gives you greater flexibility than the once-a-day bus. Still, you must factor in at least one night's extra stay over the plane, probably two with the bus. It becomes more of a toss-up between bus, plane or whether you feel up to driving for 13 hours over two days.
   
Destination three: Bergen to Førde 
[a regional centre, on the way to Volda]
Distance by car: 175 km. Options:

• Bus: 5 kg / 3,5 hours
• Plane: 11 kg / ca. 4 hours
• Car: 30 kg / ca. 3,5 hours (depending on ferry)

 Førde, being closer, has a much better coach connection, like the plane three times a day, and as we can see, actually beats the plane on time spent, so here there is no contest, bus wins. But for an EV it is also well within reasonable range, and with less emissions. So either EV, if you have one, or bus.
   
Destination four: Bergen to Stavanger, 
our neighbouring university town to the south.
Distance by car: 210 km. Options:

• Bus: 6 kg / 5,5 hours
• Plane: 42+ kg / 4 hours
• Car: 35 kg / ca. 5 hours (with ferry)

 Bergen-Stavanger is one of the busiest air routes in Norway, and the one it is most urgent to get rid of. The CO2 sum I calculate here is probably far too low, since the plane basically just takes off and then lands. They are even planning some humongous bridges and tunnels to make the road alternative competitive, but as we can see it already almost is, in spite of its 45-minutes ferry stretch. Buses are frequent, and provide the best alternative besides an EV. So here too, bus or EV. Here even the ICE car marginally beats the plane on emissions, but definitely, take the bus.
   
So, the conclusions for western Norway are not terribly surprising, except for Volda, where the argument for flying is actually quite realistic.

Now for a trickier one. The third largest city in Norway is Trondheim, in central Norway.
Distance by car: 629 km. Options:

• Bus: 17 kg / 15 hours [overnight bus?]
• Plane: 115 kg / ca. 4,5 hours
• Car: 107 kg / ca. 10 hours (at least one ferry)
• Train: 0 kg / best case about 15 hours. 

It is actually possible to take the train from Bergen to Trondheim, by a detour through Oslo. The bus and car cut straight north-east across the mountain, by different routes evidently, the car is five hours quicker, but the ICE car emits almost as much CO2 as the jet plane. Anyway, the point is that for all practical purposes all three options give unacceptably long travel for a one-day meeting, it would take two full days (or a night and a day) each way, unless you are young and sporty enough to stomach an overnight bus journey both ways. Even a night-and-day train would only get you there in the afternoon of the following day. It is way above the 4-hour limit I set. So here you will see the fortitude of green conscience: A strong supporter will take the train and spend the extra days, a lesser one - and I fear I would be one - would, if I cannot get them to do a video meet, take the CO2 cost and fly.
      Further north, even the staunchest green supporter will acknowledge that flying is inevitable. You can, by spending about yet another day, get a bit further north by train, to Bodø, but the rest is bus and ferry, and perhaps only local buses. The most idealistic young people will take the train from Bodø, or from Narvik (through Sweden), but a car, even an electric one, would only be for a holiday trip, not for a business meeting.
   
Travelling to Europe
Again, so far not so many surprises here: use a bus if you can, reduce flying to a minimum, but fly if you must.

However, the most pressing issue is travelling abroad. We can and should not completely stop going abroad, and it has been my contention that it is a practical impossibility to go from Bergen to the European continent without flying. So let us test that claim with an imagined visit: Let us choose Paris, which is pretty far north in Europe, and assume we are going for a guest lecture - a morning's work with a lunch or similar. How long does it take us to go from Bergen to Paris for that purpose without leaving the surface?

Option 1: Train
As far as I can see, there are three main options. One is by train from Bergen to Oslo, then down to Copenhagen, and from there through Germany to Paris. I did that many times in my youth (from Oslo, but still). But that was then. Now, the fragmentation of train services seems determined to deter us from travelling long distances. There are hardly any night trains left, and the train you must take leaves an hour before the one you are on arrives. So, trying to use various scheduling services, I came up with this travel plan:

• Day 1: Leave Bergen on the night train, arrive Oslo in morning, after the early train to Gothenburg has left.
• Day 2: Take the noon train to Gothenburg, change and continue to Copenhagen. No night trains going south, so hotel night.
• Day 3: from Copenhagen to Duisburg in Germany, arrival 8 PM. No night trains.
• Day 4: Duisburg to Paris, arrive noon. [Once a week, an early train will get you all the way from Cph to Paris in one day]

Total time spent: 33 hours effective travel, or 2,5 days and three nights. CO2 (continent only), about 17 kg.  
       (There is another option: leaving Bergen at 8AM on day 1 will get you as far as Helsingborg at midnight; then wait there until 5AM and continue to Malmö and Copenhagen. That will save you a day, but is possibly not an attractive option).

Option 2: Driving through Sweden (in an electric car)
I will not even calculate the CO2 of an ICE (well, I did, it was 390 kg - a plane emits 260 kg). But you can drive EVs in Europe, of course, if you have one. There are two main options. One is to follow the train route, to Oslo, down Sweden and Copenhagen through Germany. That will take you effectively 26 hours travel, and depends how many hours you like to drive a day. If we set a limit of 10 hours / day, that will then include two overnight stays on the way. CO2 is not 0 now, as we must calculate in non-clean European electricity for that part of the journey, estimated at about 40-45 kg.

Option 3: Driving through Denmark
The third option is to take the ferry directly from Bergen to the northern tip of Jutland, and then drive down Denmark and Germany. The ferry costs 72 kg CO2, leaves in the afternoon and reaches Denmark the following morning. You then have fourteen hours of travel to Paris. So, a total of 35 hours (20 of them at sea), or realistically one night in addition to the night on the boat. Total CO2 cost, ca. 110 kg. (You can also take various local trains down Denmark to reach Hamburg, but good luck with making the connections. Possible CO2 cost: 72 + 14 = 86 kg)

So, in short, I am describing a holiday trip with your family when you want to take it leisurely and take in the sights etc. It is not an option for a shorter visit, no matter how green you are.

The realistic alternative: flying to Europe
Thus my contention that going abroad for non-holiday purposes requires air travel. But that is not the end of it. I also had in my mind that it mattered how you travelled by air. If it is so that an airplane emits more on take-off than on cruising, does it not matter how many stopovers you have? And, as mentioned, the carbon calculators confirm that this is an issue. So, let us go to Paris once again, in two typical alternatives:

• Bergen-Amsterdam-Paris: One "long-haul" to Amsterdam, one "short-haul" to Paris: 291 kg.
• Bergen-Paris direct: 260 kg. 

      This may not be a major difference, about 11 per cent (although my averages may underestimate the extra cost of a separate flight). If, however, we consider the flight Bergen-Amsterdam (about 170 kg) the "unavoidable expense" of getting to the continent from Bergen, then distinction between the extra cost of a direct flight to a nearby destination like Paris becomes a bit clearer, 90 kg to 120. You also save travel time, of course, by some 1-2 hours, but connecting flights are more frequent, so it may be less convenient.
      However, the major difference is if you consider travelling the second half on the surface: Fly to Schipol, and then take the train to Paris. The train takes 3,5 hours, which means a time cost over connecting flights of perhaps only an hour or two, and the emissions - being mainly in France, which has pretty clean electricity - would be in the region of 3-4 kg. Now, this example may not be convincing compared to a direct flight when you already have "paid the price" of one take-off and landing. But it is fairly compelling for destinations that do not have direct flights from Bergen.

A pragmatic strategy for improving green-ness in European travel
So that would line up this strategy, when we go to the continent:
- Take a direct flight from Bergen to the closest possible airport, and then take the train the rest of the way, rather than messing with connecting flights. Thus, avoid going through Oslo or Copenhagen. Today, of course international and air travel is in flux, we do not know which airlines, flights or direct destinations will still exist when borders open and travel restrictions are lifted. London and Amsterdam are certain to be back, while Paris, Berlin or others may be less certain. But the general rule will probably still hold: If your final destination is within 5-6 hours train ride from the closest direct flight connection from Bergen (which will cover much of Northern Europe), then the green alternative is to avoid connecting flights, and use plane + train instead. If you have to use connecting flights, use as few and long hops as possible.
      That will come with a time cost, of course: quite likely it may add an extra overnight stay or two. But that is probably the overall consequence we must draw from travelling green: It will be less common to go from your home, shoot straight in to the meeting, then jump into a taxi and fly out immediately after. We must factor in a bit slower pace if we add trains or buses rather than air travel. But, in most cases travelling to Europe takes a full day anyway, and the extra time cost will when we get used to it, not feel so onerous as we might think.

***

That was it. Is this all obvious - bus and train is better than plane, always? Partly yes. But my calculations here have highlighted that isn't just being "good" or "bad", white or black. There are actual quantifiable figures involved. And the facts that taking the plane to Volda is justifiable, was a bit of a surprise to me, and in particular that driving a petrol car is almost just as "dirty" as flying a jet plane the same distance, unless, of course, you pile more passengers into your car (then you divide the car figure by number of passengers, of course). But even for Volda, you would need at least four people in the car to match a full airplane. Also, for me at least, the "plane + train" option in Europe may well be something I will try to follow when and if we ever get to practice that again. But each of you will of course have your own priorities and choices, and for those who live on the continent, this is probably just an academic exercise: You are well served with trains and coaches everywhere. Consider it a view from the peripheral north.