Best Practice

Introduction

By 2030 Oslo hopes to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent compared to 1991 and by 2050 it expects to be climate neutral. The city believes it is vital to increase the share of electric vehicles on its streets.

Consumer demand throughout Norway has been driven by a raft of generous incentives introduced by the Norwegian government since 2009 to make owning and operating electric vehicles cheaper than their polluting equivalents.A few years ago Oslo embarked on a strategy to increase the number of electric charging points as a way to encourage citizens to buy electric vehicles.

The Electric Vehicle Capital of the World

Reason to Be Selected

Getting people to choose more environmentally friendly transport is not science fiction, but it does take some strategic planning.Oslo successfulty became “EV Capital of the World” after ten years of work shifting the market competition.

Highlights:

To boost numbers of EVs further Oslo initiated several schemes to make the prospect of EV ownership more attractive to citizens. Recognising that a major barrier was the lack of charging infrastructure, it installed 300 additional public charging stations in 2014.

Oslo also facilitated charging stations in non-public areas through subsidies from the Climate and Environment Fund. As part of this fund, private companies, apartment complexes and shopping centres can apply for subsidies to establish charging points for EVs.

Details

A battery of local and national incentives

Emissions reductions from transportation are key as this sector accounts for 60 % of greenhouse gas emissions in Oslo.

The EV success is due to a battery of local and national incentives developed to promote zero emission vehicles. This includes no tax purchase, no VAT, free parking, free passing through the toll ring, access to the bus lane, free charging and free transport on ferries.

To kick-start the adoption, the City has contributed to the deployment of a robust charging infrastructure, and 2,000 charging points for electric vehicles have been established in the city.

Cooperation with stakeholders

Key success factors are that EVs must be cheap to buy, cheap and convenient to use.

Strong cooperation with stakeholders like; the EV Users Associations, Environmental NGOs (Zero & Bellona), R&D organizations, and relevant partners in EU projects (FREVUE, SEEV4 City) has been crucial for the success.

The green transformation in transportation has also created new business opportunities in sectors like charging equipment, charging services, renewable energy, EV manufacturing, smart-grids, back-office systems and applications, both in Norway and Europe.

Conclusions

The secrets to Oslo’s success are three-fold. First,mading EVs cheap to buy.The government gave their residents every possible incentive to buy an electric vehicle, removing the purchase tax, which is at least 10,000 Euros, and the value added tax (VAT), which is another 2,500 Euros. Second, they made EVs cheap to use by offering free parking, free entrance to toll roads, free ferries, free tunnels, and free charging. Third, they made EVs easy to use with easy parking and easy-to-access charging infrastructure.

All of this was a team effort, with the national government making EVs cheaper to buy by exempting them from VAT, and the city making sure that EVs were cheap and easy to use.