Photo credit: Ecomento

Norway, the 5-million strong Scandinavian country that has remained one of the world’s richest nations for decades on end due to its rich oil and gas fields, is now also leading the way when it comes to switching to electric cars.

For the month of March, 56% (8,000 cars) of all new registered vehicles in Norway were electric.

As an example, Finland, a Scandinavian neighbor to the east similar in size to Norway, only registered 3,000 electric cars for the whole of 2017.

The reason for this success is because of Norway’s two pronged incentives. First of all, whenever you drive into Oslo, Norway’s capital, with a normal fuel driven vehicle, you have to pay a tax. if you drive into those same streets with an electric vehicle, no charge. Parking is the same.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">All time high: 54 % market share of battery electric cars (BEV) in Hordaland County, Norway, this March. The percentage for Q1, 2018 is 46%. When plug-in hybrids are included 69% are electric. Diesel cars has fallen to a new record low 8 %. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/elbil?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#elbil</a> <a href="https://t.co/yw0LgyH3dR">pic.twitter.com/yw0LgyH3dR</a></p>— Sølve Sondbø (@solves) <a href="https://twitter.com/solves/status/981825621675380736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 5, 2018</a></blockquote>

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Secondly, there are great subsidies to be had if you switch from a fuel-driven vehicle to an electric one.

Mr Yoann Le Petit, the clean vehicles officer at Transport and Environment said: “When you buy an electric vehicle you don’t pay the registration tax or VAT. There are in-use benefits too. In Norway there are many toll roads and you don’t pay these. You can also have free parking. There are a whole set of incentives that will drive you towards this alternative. It’s a rational option for the consumer to buy electric.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">How Norway's government made electric cars irresistible <a href="https://t.co/vYWNDteAJZ">https://t.co/vYWNDteAJZ</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/YouTube?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@YouTube</a></p>— Angel Matos (@pachiche1) <a href="https://twitter.com/pachiche1/status/984187918318297088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 11, 2018</a></blockquote>

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The problem is that other European countries aim to protect their own car industry and are therefore slower to switch. Germany and France both have multiple car makers which represented hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Mr Le Petit thinks that those industries could be replaced with something else, which would benefit electric cars: “The challenge is to make sure your electricity comes from renewables and to ensure that the components, such as the batteries, are sourced in an environmentally and sustainable way.”

Source:

https://themobileherald.com/electric-vehicles-market-scenario-leading-players-segments-analysis-and-growth-by-forecast-to-2023-mrfr/44712/