1,000 Nissan Leafs Sold in Norway 6 Months

May 1st, 2012 by Zachary Shahan

Norway is already consistently ranked at the top of the list of ‘happiest’ countries and countries with the highest quality of life, but it seems that the country isn’t complacent about this and is working to continue keeping things nice. As one such example, its uptake of Nissan Leafs has been remarkably fast. In just 6 months, 1,000 Nissan Leafs have been sold in the Nordic nation.

“The surge in sales catapulted the LEAF to ninth on the list of the best-selling passenger cars in Norway in February this year, bagging a two per cent share of the car market, and making the LEAF Nissan’s second highest selling car nationally,” Business Green notes.

Can you imagine if 2% of cars sold in the U.S. were Leafs?

Part of the fast uptake is due to healthy incentives and tax breaks for residents who buy the Leaf, or other electric vehicles — it offers the most rewarding package of any European country, in fact.

“No VAT is charged on electric vehicle purchases in Norway, the new car tax is waived, and drivers are eligible for free parking, exemption from some tolls, and can use bus lanes in Oslo. There are also around 3,500 public charging points in the capital, many of which are free to use.”

That’s incentive! No wonder the country is sucking up that pretty blue machine!

Source: Business Gre en
Image: Nissan/Gas2

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Tags: Leaf, Nissan, Nissan Leaf, nissan leaf norway, norway electric vehicles, norway leaf, norway nissan leaf, quickies

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

rommel43

Does the tax break apply to the opel version of the chevy volt
- Ross
  
  Yes.
  
  If you view this in Chrome google translate will translate it into English.
  
  http://www.opel.no/opplev-opel/om-opel/opel-nyheter/2011/october/opel-nyheter-opel-ampera-endelig-prisklar-171011.html
  
  The Opel Ampera (aka Chevy Volt) is also Car of the Year 2012 in Norway.
Ross

And almost all of the electricity to power them will be coming from renewable.
- http://ronaldbrak.blogspot.com.au/ Ronald Brak
  
  Yep, and it will be interesting to see if they set up a vehicle to grid energy storage system with these electric cars. Of course I’m sure Norway doesn’t have the peaky type of grid we have here in Australia, so it might not be a huge priority for them.
  - Bob_Wallace
    
    A V2G system is being tried close by in Denmark…
    
    “Nuvve registers vehicles with its service and then co-ordinates their charging and discharging of electricity according to a combination of the driver’s needs and the electricity company’s requirements. Suitably equipped vehicles can be asked to discharge energy back to the grid when the electricity company needs it, such as at times of peak demand.
    
    The technology can also be used for frequency regulation, balancing the frequency of delivered electricity as short-term demand varies.
    
    In addition, the service can be used for load balancing, storing surplus energy from volatile renewable sources such as wind power, which can otherwise be forced to shut down if wind farms generate too much energy for the grid at a particular time.”
    
    http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2082051/nuvve-brings-v2g-network-denmark
    
    Norway may be slow to develop V2G systems as most of their electricity is from hydro. Since hydro is so dispatchable there’s not much need to store electricity from other sources.
    
    I’d expect V2G to spring up first in countries with a high percentage of wind input.