EV Sales In Denmark Grow 10× Over — Danes Are Getting Into The Electric Game
A press release from the Danish automobile industry’s organization AutoBranchen Danmark suggests that the electric vehicle market in the country might actually come alive again after it was killed off in 2016 by new taxation.
The tax rate is now fixed at the 2018 level of 20% for the next two years, but only for cars below DKK 400,000 ($61,000). The price share above that is taxed 40%, which means the two top range Tesla Model 3’s currently on offer has a higher price tag than most countries. In December, the long-range AWD Model 3 was DKK 464,000 ($70,900), but now it is DKK 470,000 ($71,800).
However, this means cars like Kia e-Niro and Hyundai Kona are getting a lot of love and attention. According to tv2.dk, 50 Kia e-Niro have been sold already. However, I do suspect that the mid-range RWD Tesla Model 3 will also sell like hot cakes when it hopefully reaches the old continent in a few months.
The press release translated in full:
The Danes show record interest in electric cars in the first 20 days of January. From a modest sale of only 18 cars in the first 3 weeks in 2018, 10 times as many electric cars have been sold in the same period this year, corresponding to just over 200 cars.
Director of AutoBranchen Danmark, Gitte Seeberg, believes that the increased demand indicates that electric cars might be facing a breakthrough.
“Sales of electric cars began to pick up in the second half of 2018 and this trend is continuing into the new year. Customers have been assured of the low taxes of only 20%, and the range of electric cars has also been greatly expanded through larger batteries. So all in all, we are probably heading in the direction of more families seeing the green cars as a sensible alternative to the traditional cars,”says Gitte Seeberg.
She also points out that new electric car models has entered the market and that the prices of electric cars have become more competitive with the more traditional gas and diesel cars. Generally, sales of electric cars have been a sluggish affair in recent years. Total sales amounted to only 1545 electric cars last year, which, however, doubled compared to the previous year. Thus, the total stock of electric cars on the Danish roads is only just under 10,000.
“The prime minister has an ambition that one million green cars will be on the roads by 2030 at the latest. This is very ambitious, and if this is to be achieved, it will require massive financing. But there is also no doubt that a lot will happen on the green front when the car manufacturers start mass production their new electric car models, ”says Gitte Seeberg.
The Ministry of Finance has calculated that the green restructuring of the transport sector will cost about DKK 88 billion ($13.5 billion) in total until 2030.
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
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
