Over Half Of Norway’s 2019 New Car Buys Were EVs

Norway and the A-ha moment that made electric cars the answer; A country fuelled by hydropower has become the world’s electric vehicle leader

Jon Henley and Elisabeth Ulven, 19 April 2020 (UK Guardian)

“…In 1995, the lead singer of the 1980s band A-ha and the head of the Norwegian environmental group Bellona climbed improbably into a converted electric Fiat Panda they had imported from Switzerland and set off on a road trip…Last month, in an economy hit by the coronavirus crisis, fully electric cars accounted for just under 60% of Norway’s new car market, and plug-in hybrids just over 15% – meaning three in four of all new cars sold were either wholly or partly electric…[T]he country looks on course to meet a government target – set in 2016, with full cross-party parliamentary support – of phasing out the sale of all new fossil-fuel based cars and light commercial vehicles by 2025…

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…The story of how and why that has happened has a straightforward, if unexpected logic. First, despite being a major oil and gas producer, almost all of Norway’s domestic energy comes from a single, and renewable, source: hydropower…That means switching to EVs is a much greener option for Norway than for countries whose power is generated mostly by coal plants…Driven by the environmental imperative, the government began offering incentives to buy and run electric cars as far back as 1990…[giving EVs] a very powerful financial argument…” click here for more

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