The Fort Worth Press - Norway speeds ahead of EU in race for fossil-free roads

USD -
AED 3.67306
AFN 67.000232
ALL 90.350124
AMD 387.090288
ANG 1.803403
AOA 911.999703
ARS 992.75005
AUD 1.509536
AWG 1.8
AZN 1.699428
BAM 1.793226
BBD 2.020336
BDT 119.578971
BGN 1.795425
BHD 0.376863
BIF 2895
BMD 1
BND 1.31667
BOB 6.92994
BRL 5.791097
BSD 1.000587
BTN 84.158972
BWP 13.324409
BYN 3.274804
BYR 19600
BZD 2.016999
CAD 1.38817
CDF 2844.000161
CHF 0.861798
CLF 0.03455
CLP 953.350148
CNY 7.102805
CNH 7.119295
COP 4415
CRC 513.542259
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 101.650276
CZK 23.25045
DJF 177.719714
DKK 6.84304
DOP 60.450122
DZD 133.036032
EGP 49.148102
ERN 15
ETB 121.09956
EUR 0.917445
FJD 2.24275
FKP 0.765169
GBP 0.769995
GEL 2.735029
GGP 0.765169
GHS 16.360062
GIP 0.765169
GMD 71.499173
GNF 8629.999729
GTQ 7.731099
GYD 209.530271
HKD 7.771095
HNL 25.070005
HRK 6.88903
HTG 131.681734
HUF 375.838011
IDR 15761.3
ILS 3.750985
IMP 0.765169
INR 84.103986
IQD 1310
IRR 42104.999976
ISK 136.620168
JEP 0.765169
JMD 158.106101
JOD 0.7093
JPY 152.094501
KES 129.000074
KGS 86.172398
KHR 4074.9999
KMF 452.502706
KPW 899.999774
KRW 1379.620045
KWD 0.30635
KYD 0.833922
KZT 488.942475
LAK 21939.999766
LBP 89599.999997
LKR 293.363651
LRD 191.850363
LSL 17.510301
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 4.810223
MAD 9.847013
MDL 17.862153
MGA 4614.999664
MKD 56.52856
MMK 3247.960992
MNT 3398.000028
MOP 8.01115
MRU 40.000038
MUR 46.030126
MVR 15.399577
MWK 1735.500496
MXN 20.116905
MYR 4.345499
MZN 63.902742
NAD 17.509729
NGN 1652.920052
NIO 36.774985
NOK 10.962497
NPR 134.654282
NZD 1.666735
OMR 0.385028
PAB 1.000706
PEN 3.76825
PGK 4.009497
PHP 58.295502
PKR 277.85022
PLN 4.003945
PYG 7880.549392
QAR 3.640602
RON 4.56449
RSD 107.358803
RUB 97.849528
RWF 1364
SAR 3.756514
SBD 8.306221
SCR 13.620414
SDG 601.49579
SEK 10.69729
SGD 1.316365
SHP 0.765169
SLE 22.725005
SLL 20969.496802
SOS 571.000069
SRD 34.906015
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.755249
SYP 2512.530268
SZL 17.510407
THB 33.605976
TJS 10.657051
TMT 3.51
TND 3.098999
TOP 2.342097
TRY 34.34781
TTD 6.783235
TWD 31.920998
TZS 2693.372993
UAH 41.474075
UGX 3662.002824
UYU 41.690353
UZS 12814.99989
VEF 3622552.534434
VES 43.761074
VND 25345
VUV 118.722039
WST 2.801184
XAF 601.447787
XAG 0.029645
XAU 0.000367
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.751676
XOF 600.48083
XPF 110.249832
YER 249.849752
ZAR 17.412702
ZMK 9001.200135
ZMW 26.842284
ZWL 321.999592
  • RBGPF

    66.4100

    66.41

    +100%

  • RYCEF

    0.0100

    7.11

    +0.14%

  • CMSC

    0.1100

    24.64

    +0.45%

  • SCS

    0.1100

    12.25

    +0.9%

  • GSK

    0.0900

    36.97

    +0.24%

  • RELX

    -0.0200

    47.06

    -0.04%

  • NGG

    0.1900

    64.45

    +0.29%

  • AZN

    0.0100

    71.43

    +0.01%

  • RIO

    -0.3200

    65.01

    -0.49%

  • CMSD

    0.1103

    24.92

    +0.44%

  • VOD

    -0.0300

    9.32

    -0.32%

  • BCC

    0.0500

    134.26

    +0.04%

  • JRI

    0.0500

    13.1

    +0.38%

  • BCE

    -2.9800

    29.12

    -10.23%

  • BTI

    0.0400

    35.11

    +0.11%

  • BP

    0.5000

    29.73

    +1.68%

Norway speeds ahead of EU in race for fossil-free roads
Norway speeds ahead of EU in race for fossil-free roads / Photo: © AFP

Norway speeds ahead of EU in race for fossil-free roads

On the quiet streets of an Oslo suburb, electric vehicles are parked in nearly every other driveway as Norway speeds towards its goal of becoming the first country free of fossil fuel-powered cars.

Text size:

Electric cars make up 43 percent of all cars in Baerum, with resident Baard Gundersen making the switch in 2016.

Now on his second fully electric car, the CEO of a coffee company described his decision as a "no-brainer".

"It was much cheaper to buy a car like this than a traditional car, almost half price," he said at the wheel of his BMW iX SUV.

Despite being a major oil and gas producer, Norway has adopted the most ambitious electric vehicle (EV) objective in the world: only zero-emission private new cars will be sold from next year.

While not a European Union member, Norway would beat the bloc's deadline to phase out the sale of fossil fuel-burning cars by 2035 by a decade.

Driven by the popularity of Teslas, electric cars accounted for a staggering 96.4 percent of new car registrations in Norway in September, vastly outpacing the European average of 17.3 percent.

Norway has come a long way since 2012, when EVs only made up 2.8 percent of the market.

The boom has much to do with proactive policy.

At the turn of the century, authorities exempted electric cars from certain taxes.

Norway had never had its own carmaker, and the hope was that the policies would create fertile ground for a homegrown EV champion.

It turned out to be in vain, as Norway's Pivco electric car maker -- later renamed Think and for a while owned by Ford -- went bankrupt in 2011.

But the tax exemptions remained -- even if some have been rolled back in recent years -- making all-electric cars competitively priced compared to those with combustion engines, which are heavily taxed.

"We have used the stick for fossil vehicles and the carrot for electric cars," Cecilie Knibe Kroglund, state secretary at Norway's transport ministry, told AFP.

"It's possible that other countries will have to use other types of incentives depending on usage, their geography and the way public transport works. But as far as we are concerned, our incentives have worked very well," she said.

- A-ha takes on EVs -

Electric cars have also long benefited from other special privileges, like exemptions from city tolls and free parking in public car parks.

This was prompted by a civil disobedience campaign in the 1990s by environmental activist Frederic Hauge, co-founder of the NGO Bellona, and Morten Harket, the singer of iconic Norwegian pop group A-ha -- famous for the hit "Take On Me".

Travelling around in a small Fiat Panda -- converted to be electric -- the two men stubbornly racked up a mountain of fines which they refused to pay in an effort to promote zero-emission vehicles.

Their trusty car was finally seized, but a few years later authorities ended up granting electric vehicles, which were still rare at the time, the special privileges.

"I didn't feel like I was entering into the role of a rebel really," Harket told the BBC in 2022.

"It was just necessary."

In 2005, the government also allowed electric cars to use lanes reserved for public transport -- thus enabling them to avoid traffic jams.

These benefits have eroded somewhat since, but in the meantime electric cars have become the norm in the Scandinavian country.

Over the past decade, technology and car ranges have also evolved along with the development of a vast network of charging stations.

In September, the number of electric cars on Norwegian roads exceeded that of petrol cars for the first time and they are hot on the heels of diesel cars -- which are still the country's most popular vehicles.

Since November 1, all taxis in Oslo have had to be emissions-free.

- Transferable model? -

German carmaker Volkswagen, the top brand in Norway, delivered its last internal combustion car, a Golf, to Norway in July.

"Since January 1, we have removed all fossil-fuelled cars from our catalogue," Kim Clemetsen, head of marketing at a dealership that imports the brand, said.

"We now only sell electric cars."

Other brands, such as Toyota, are resisting the push and are planning to continue to offer hybrid cars and even combustion engines in 2025.

Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, a staunch defender of rural interests, has also thrown a spanner in the works by saying that it is "not a problem at all" if "a few" combustion-powered vehicles are still sold next year.

But if current trends hold, the country should come very close to achieving its ambition of 100 percent zero-emissions vehicles.

Christina Bu, secretary general of the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association, thinks this should be encouraging to other countries aiming to phase out combustion engines.

"Norway was in many ways not a very likely country to succeed with this: it's a big country, long distances, very cold temperatures in winter, which affects the range of the car," Bu told AFP.

"So there's not really any reason why Norway should succeed rather than another country."

L.Rodriguez--TFWP