Norway March 2013

Straightforward alloys in the Mitsubishi I-Miev

The Nissan Leaf goes from strength to strength in Norway, hitting yet another record in sales (297 units) and placement (4th) in the overall market, with the Leaf starting to be build in Sunderland, UK and the price drop that comes with it, it looks like the Nissan will climb even higher in the ranking.

On the other hand, it seems that every other car in this segment is suffering from the competition of the Leaf, as they all lose sales regarding 2012, this being the reason for the EV market to register a growth of just 4,88% and the share of plug ins being stable at 3,1-3,2% share.

This share will surely grow when the Model S from Tesla arrives, so expect for Norway to be in the forefront of EV market share for quite some time.

Pl	Norway	March'13	YTD'13		March'12	13 vs '12
1	Nissan Leaf	297	849		179	65,92%
2	Mitsubishi I-Miev	40	129		83	-51,81%
3	Citröen C-Zero	2	26		28	-92,86%
4	Peugeot iOn	2	26		25	-92,00%
5	Opel Ampera	2	18		4	-50,00%
6	Mia Electric	0	3		0	0,00%
7	Tesla Roadster	1	1		4	-75,00%
8	Think City	0	1		5	0,00%
9	Fisker Karma	0	1		0	0,00%
	TOTAL	344	1.054		328	4,88%

Source: BSCB, Manufacturers

I have wandered for some time on the reasons that plug ins are so popular in Norway, after some digging I've found the government incentives that support this popularity:

1. Gasoline and diesel is heavily taxed here. First with fixed amounts per liter, and on top of that 25% VAT. The result is that a US gallon of gasoline costs around USD8.8.

2. Electricity is cheap. Average over the year is USD0.13/kWh. (This includes VAT and other taxes.)

3. ICE cars are even more heavily taxed. A Volkswagen Golf starts at USD41k. And that's a fairly small fuel efficient car. The taxes are based on weight, hp, CO2 and NOX, so something like a BMW M5 starts at USD304k.

4. EVs are exempt from all purchase taxes, VAT and all.

5. EVs can drive in the bus/taxi-lanes, and since Oslo is one of the more congested cities in Europe, that is a very good selling point. A newspaper here raced an EV against a gas car recently, in rush traffic, and the EV arrived 45 minutes earlier than the gas car. That was a typical commuter route. 1.5 hours per day, around 270 working days per year means 405 hours saved per year.

6. EVs pay a significantly reduced annual registration fee. USD73 instead of USD518.

7. EVs don't pay toll road fees or ferry fees. For a typical commuter, this can be USD2,000 per year.

8. The government has invested significant amounts in charging infrastructure and EV parking, all of which is free to the user.

9. EVs get free parking on any public parking space. In central Oslo, this can be worth USD2,500 per year for a typical commuter.

10. If you use an EV for work, the employer compensation tariff is 30% better.

11. If used as a company car, the valuation for tax purposes is halved.