More than 90% of new cars sold in Norway are electric. And it all started with a couple of pop stars riding around in an electric Fiat Panda.
The Harald I know is not the king, though the king of Norway is also called Harald; we just find ourselves in front of the monarch's residence - a beautiful red mansion. I'm in Stavanger to find out how, in a world where transport contributes about 20% of CO2 emissions, Norway has become the world leader in the number of electric cars. In 2023, 82.4% of private cars sold in the country were electric. In January of this year, this percentage was 92.1%. The goal is to reach 100% by next year.
Meanwhile, in the UK, the ban on new petrol and diesel cars was recently pushed back from 2030 to 2035. Only 14.7% of new cars registered in January were electric. The situation in the EU is even worse: 10.9% of cars sold there in January 2024 were electric.
Why Stavanger? Because except that - irony of fate! - is the oil capital, Norway's third largest city, located in the southwest of the country, has a key role on the way to 100% zero-emission transport. In 1994, electric buses were tested here. In 1998, the city was part of a European trial of electric vehicles for the distribution of goods. In 2009, it was the first Scandinavian city to host the biannual Electric Vehicle Symposium.
This is also where the non-King Harald lives: this is Harald Nils Røstvik, an architect who is now an emeritus professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Stavanger. It also played an important role in Norway's electric vehicle revolution.
With its rugged mountains, long and cold winters and highly dispersed population, Norway is perhaps an unlikely country for a transport revolution. How did she get this far? "The answer is simple: good tax policy," says Kristina Bu, secretary general of the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association, the world's largest electric vehicle club with more than 120,000 members.
In a video call from Oslo, she explains that Norway has always taxed new cars heavily - a high acquisition tax plus 25% VAT. In the 1990s, under pressure from environmentalists, politicians began removing these taxes to make electric cars more competitive, even though there were almost none on the market.
Then, when electric models came along - the first Nissan Leaf and Tesla, as well as Norway's short-lived attempt at car manufacturing - the Think City - people bought them because the cars were taxed according to their emissions. All over the world, due to higher production costs, electric cars were and remain more expensive. "We have not given direct subsidies like other countries; we have taxed some new cars and not others," added Bu. Norway's success in electric vehicles is related to the country's population and politics, says Bu: "We are a small country, so there is a lot of cooperation between civil society and the political system. It is not difficult for us to hold meetings with parliamentarians, so the situation was not only top-down, but also bottom-up." Because Norway's proportional multi-party system often results in coalition and minority governments, emissions have not become politicized as in other countries - there is enthusiasm for EVs across the political spectrum. The goal for all new cars to be zero-emission by 2025 was supported by all parties in the country" /BGNES