Norway to ban petrol cars from 2025
Mobility — di Rudi Bressa
The Nordic country, already at the top of the rankings for electric car sales, could ban petrol cars within just a few years.
Norway to ban petrol cars from 2025
The Nordic country, already at the top of the rankings for electric car sales, could ban petrol cars within just a few years.
That Norway is betting on sustainable mobility is well known. The capital Oslo announced some time ago its intention to ban petrol cars from entering the city by 2019, while the public administration has given a strong boost to the installation of public charging points.
There is, however, another piece of news that is attracting attention — so much so that even Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has weighed in from his Twitter profile. Norway could ban the sale of cars running on fossil fuels from 2025, in just over ten years' time.
Just heard that Norway will ban new sales of fuel cars in 2025. What an amazingly awesome country. You guys rock!!
The news comes from a national daily newspaper, whose headline reads more or less "Frp will remove all petrol cars", as reported by the Independent (Frp is the Norwegian right-wing party). Even if it is not an official decision, there appear to be no shortage of confirmations from within the governing parties.
Norway: the country where most electric cars are sold
Should a similar law be passed, Norwegian citizens would already find the path smoothed for them. Indeed, as early as March of this year, two thirds of all cars sold were hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric: specifically, 2,595 electric cars, 2,042 plug-in and 3,396 hybrid vehicles were registered.
A signal that shows how, in the Scandinavian country, the transition towards zero-emission mobility has already begun. Certainly aided by the government's policy towards battery-powered cars, which offers its citizens a whole range of incentives that could be translated as no road tax, a reduction in VAT at the point of purchase, and reductions for company fleets as well.
Furthermore, those who own an electric car do not pay for parking, do not pay for the ferry and have access to free public charging points (source: Greencarreports). Finally, no tolls are due on motorways and bridges. If one also considers that 99 per cent of the electricity produced in Norway comes from hydropower, then the circle can be considered virtually complete. In this case, emissions arising from private transport are reduced to a minimum, whether CO2 or fine particles such as particulate matter. Walking through the streets of Oslo, one might hear no sound of a combustion engine at all, within just a few years.