No More Gasoline & Diesel Car Sales In Denmark By 2030

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Today, at the official annual opening of the Danish parliament, Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen urged that all parties work together to make sure that no more gasoline and diesel cars will be sold in the country by 2030.

The national media dr.dk quotes the Prime Minister:

In 12 years — just 12 years — we will end sales of new diesel and gasoline cars. And in 17 years every new car in Denmark must be an electric car or other form of zero-emission car. This means that by 2030 there will be more than 1 million hybrid, electric, or equivalent green cars in Denmark.

Well, that is indeed a very clear message, and since the current government has been very unclear in recent years on such plans, it seems they mean business this time. The Prime Minister continues:

It is a big ambition, and it will not be easy to accomplish, but that’s precisely why we should try. We will only achieve this goal if the parliament is willing to work together. Denmark has to agree as a whole, as we traditionally do. This way we can also motivate other countries.

OK, but on that last point, I think Norway believes it is the other way around, since it has just reached a record 45% market share of all-electric vehicles sales! Denmark is still below 2%. Norway expects to end all sales of fossil fueled vehicles by 2025. Denmark has a goal of being completely off fossil fuels in all sectors by 2050.

One of the rare occasions last year when I parked next to another EV

Lars Løkke Rasmussen announced that a promised air- and climate plan will be revealed next week which presumably will reveal more details on how a boost in sales of plug-in vehicles will be achieved. He also emphasized the importance of this plan not becoming a fighting issue in the elections next year, but instead a plan based on consensus by all parties.

This is a last chance for Denmark to show the world that we mean business in electrifying the transportation sector. Fingers crossed…


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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