Vast Majority Of Danes Support Political Efforts In Favor Of Electric Cars

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

Ingeniøren reports that a new survey conducted by YouGov for the Danish Electric Car Alliance shows that 73% of Danes believe that their elected politicians should make special efforts to promote the sale of electric cars.

Director of the Danish Electric Vehicle Alliance Lærke Flader says:

“Politically, little is happening in terms of achieving CO2 reductions in the transport sector. Also when comparing with our neighboring countries. The survey shows clearly that you can question whether the politicians are in par with their constituents.”

In 2014, a similar survey showed 66% giving the same answer, so electric vehicles are apparently getting rooted in the minds of the Danes. However, there is a long way from having the desire of owning electric cars to actually buying them.

evdk
Rented Model S in my driveway

Last month, a whopping 112 pure electric cars were sold in the country compared to 27 in March 2017. An increase from a ridiculously low number to a very low number is better than nothing, but it will take a couple of years with similar sale increase to show a trend.

And this is where it gets really scary, because the current 20% sales tax is planned to increase to 40% starting January 2019 (no, really!). So, you can imagine Danish Tesla Model 3 reservation holders drawing a big sigh when Elon Musk pushed the delivery date from late 2018 to early 2019. Ouch!

Lærke Flader adds: “Finally there is a slight rising increase in sales, and we simply cannot kill it [the EV market] again.”

She is absolutely right. If this country kills the infant EV market a second time (the first time when a 20% sales tax was added in January 2016, followed by a lowering of sales tax on fossil fuel cars from 180% to 150% in 2017) then we become the laughing-stock of the global EV market — again.


Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.

Latest CleanTechnica TV Video


Advertisement
 
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.

Jesper Berggreen

Jesper had his perspective on the world expanded vastly after having attended primary school in rural Africa in the early 1980s. And while educated a computer programmer and laboratory technician, working with computers and lab-robots at the institute of forensic medicine in Aarhus, Denmark, he never forgets what life is like having nothing. Thus it became obvious for him that technological advancement is necessary for the prosperity of all humankind, sharing this one vessel we call planet earth. However, technology has to be smart, clean, sustainable, widely accessible, and democratic in order to change the world for the better. Writing about clean energy, electric transportation, energy poverty, and related issues, he gets the message through to anyone who wants to know better. Jesper is founder of Lifelike.dk and a long-term investor in Tesla, Ørsted, and Vestas.

Jesper Berggreen has 241 posts and counting. See all posts by Jesper Berggreen