Electric Car Market Share & Financial Incentives — Country Comparison
Originally published on EV Obsession.
Incentives are an interesting thing. Sometimes, the ones you think will work the best don’t work too well. Sometimes, ones you don’t think will have as much effect end up having a huge effect. Sometimes, incentives work great with one population but don’t work so well with another population. Electric car incentives are so varied by country and within countries that it’s hard to compare the results, but data from a couple of recent surveys provide some very interesting results.
I’ve pulled the three charts in this article from a recent UK study (h/t Herman Trabish), but the results originated in previous studies (as you can see in the credits).
In this first chart below, you can see that strong financial incentives (green vertical bars) aimed at increasing EV adoption have greatly varied success (red horizontal bars) in different countries — shockingly varied success, imho. On one extreme, Denmark has huge financial incentives and very poor EV uptake (EV market share well below 0.5%). Norway, well known for leading the world in EV market share, comes in 4th in terms of financial incentives. (Note, btw, that the chart shows slightly more than 3% of annual car sales going to EVs in Norway, but approximately 25% of new car sales have gone to EVs in recent months.) To examine your own countries of interest, scan through the chart below, but remember that this is for the year 2012… and a lot has changed since then in some countries.
Now I’m curious what Estonia’s EV market share has gotten up to….
Another study compared national incentives and EV market share in 2014. The results are below.
Apparently, incentives were measured a bit differently or something changed in Norway and/or Denmark in order to put Norwegian incentives a bit higher than Danish incentives. But the general story is the same: Norway’s incentives have helped to spur huge EV adoption, while Danish incentives have had very little effect. A top Nissan Europe exec basically put it down to awareness.
While sitting in the middle of the pack in terms of the financial value of their EV incentives, the Netherlands and California do relatively well in terms of EV market share.
One of the first things that stood out to me, though, is just how little Germany — one of the largest car markets in the world — is doing to advance the EV revolution. I wonder if it has anything to do with its powerful incumbent car companies and their investment in dirty gasoline and diesel technologies.
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Looking at the last graph, I was like “Funny, they didn’t even put Norway on it…” 🙂
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haha. 😀 yeah, it would be nice if at least one other country compared. 😀
also, interestingly, it’s the only country i’ve found where you can find official sales/registration data on all EV/PHEV models. not surprising…
So Denmark is giving the cars away and people don’t want them? There has to be something wrong with that. Their incentive is not that generous.
Denark? Terrible charging infrastructure until quite recently, I think.
the adoption of EV’s by industry and market is slow, because there are better solutions that defocus the choice. for twenty years the mantra of fuel cells was very strong, I still believe that such is a better solution. car makers are much enthusiastic,p to adopt such instead of EV. in my opinion EV will be like zeppelins before airplanes.
Fuel cells are not efficient. Not sure what sort of solution you are thinking about.
Don’t you know? After EVs we’re moving on to teletransportation. I saw that on TV, I think…..
Of course they are, the fact that you are not driving a ton of batteries makes them already better. 3.2L/100km. Actually the latest survey in Germany shows that only 10 percent of people like the Eva, much more is the percentage for fuel cells
Tesla S curb weight 4,647 to 4,830 lbs.
Toyota Mirai curb weight 4,078.6 lbs.
A ton?
Were those people who took the survey informed that Toyota says it will cost 15 cents per mile to drive their Mirai and 4 cents per mile to drive a Tesla S?
Fuel cells = #fail http://evobsession.com/hydrogen-fuel-cell-cars-fail-in-depth/
Denmark has sky-high taxes on new cars. Still, you you think the effect of incentives would be roughly proportional.
I fear your cynical explanation of the absence of incentives may be correct. That means that for all the PR, VW and BMW still see their short-term futures in ICEs. That may well change in VW, after the coming purges.
So those Danish new car taxes are not waived for EVs. iirc, Norway has ~100% tax on new cars, but it’s waived for EVs. But I was assuming this incentive is part of the calculation, and whatever Denmark offers brings it up to a similar level as Norway.
It’s already on the list to dig in and do a long piece comparing incentives in different countries, but this is really pushing me to do that piece sooner than later. 😛 😀
On the first graph I find it interesting (very sad) that Canada has ZERO incentives (federally) for EV’s, and is dead last because of it, but that stands to reason considering the current governments attitude towards FF.
I hope that will change come October 19 (election).
The only (almost) reason for EV sales are incentives from our two largest provinces, Ontario and Quebec and to some extent BC.
I don’t see anything in your link that supports your statement. Did you link a changing page rather than a specific article?
Germany does not have specific incentives for electric cars, but what it does have is a gasoline price of $6.21 a gallon in the second quarter of this year which was the 14th highest in the world. A car that gets 35 miles to a gallon and is driven 10,000 miles a year will burn through an extra $990 dollars a year or $9,900 a decade in Germany compared to the US. While this may not be a relevant comparison for many people, this example doesn’t seem too bad compared to the US’s $7,500 tax credit. So while there are definitely countries that are doing a lot more to encourage electric vehicle uptake, there are developed countries that are just as rich that effectively offer far less incentive than Germany. I won’t name any of these countries, but on a completely unrelated note I will sing a song:
Australia, you’re standing in it,
Standing in it for Australia,
So put your hand up,
You’ve got to stand up,
And count yourself for Australia,
In it, in it, in it,
You’re standing in it.
And again on another completely unrelated and quite possibly off key note, I don’t think Australia should necessarily offer incentives for electric vehicles. We could just tax vehicles based on their emissions without caring about exactly what’s under the hood. Keep it simple. It makes it harder for Volkswagen to cheat that way.
Great points.
Oh, and health costs. That’s a biggie. The casual destruction of people’s health by vehicle emissions needs to be priced in.
The chart has confused you. The green bar shows financial incentives. The small red line/bar shows ~0.1% market share, as you write.