Norway soon to be a car-free country?

In hardly any other country has the integration of e-cars been as successful as in Norway. In 2021, 64.5 percent of new registrations were electric cars. After 2025, no new combustion cars may even be sold. But this does not seem to be enough for the Norwegian government, which now wants to go one step further. After the electric revolution, the citizens of the electricity paradise should now rather use public transport, bicycles or even walk. As few cars as possible should be on the road.  

That is the plan of Social Democratic Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Transport Minister Jon-Ivar Nygard. They call on their compatriots to use buses and trains more. "E-cars give us greener transport options, but they also compete directly with public transport in densely populated areas. We need to make it more attractive to use public transport and bicycles and to walk," Nygard explains. Because of the worldwide pandemic, many Norwegians had continued to avoid public transport and thus the use of buses and trains dropped sharply. Now the government wants to increase their use again, not only to support the growth of public transport, but also to further reduce CO2 emissions in the process. To change this trend, the subsidies for the purchase of e-cars will be radically reduced. According to the latest announcement by the government, the currently still generous state subsidies are to be drastically reduced and in some cases completely cancelled. The subsidies for e-car purchases will only be available until the end of 2022.  

The population seems to welcome the government measure. However, some citizens are not convinced that the cancellation of the e-car premium is the solution for an expansion of public transport. 

It is precisely a good public transport infrastructure, if it can meet the mobility needs of citizens, that is the key to a car-free future. But not all countries can already afford this. In the USA, for example, where public transport is almost non-existent in many regions, huge investments in public transport would have to be made before the population could be required to switch from cars to buses and trains. On the other hand, given the sufficient supply of public transport, it is not too much to ask that European citizens would give up their cars more often. In order to reduce transport emissions by up to 42 percent by 2030, Germany has in fact opted for a mixed package of measures. This includes not only strengthening the railways and increasing CO2 pricing, but also promoting electric mobility. However, doubts about the actual contribution of e-cars to CO2 reduction also arise for the federal government. No decision has yet been taken on the extension of the environmental bonus.  

A tightening of the environmental zone regulations could also help Norway to reduce the number of cars on the roads. For even though there is a city toll in Oslo, the two environmental zones in Norway are only active when pollution limits are exceeded. The creation of permanently active zones, as they exist in Germany, Austria and Belgium, would be one idea. One thing is certain, however. Whether internal combustion or e-drive, fewer and fewer cars will be on the road in Norway in the future.