The government has placed a protective hand over the VAT exemption, and promises buyers of Tesla and other electric cars that they will have to pay at least until 2020, the newspaper Dagens Næringsliv.
When the favorable electric car (EV) regime was introduced in 2013, and further improved afterward, there was a limit of 50,000 vehicles. The state will lose substantial revenues by electrical cars being included in exemption from VAT and vehicle taxes.
The number of electric vehicles in Norway will surpass 100,000 by the end of 2016, but Finance Minister Siv Jensen won’t touch the EV regime, although the number is far higher than foreseen when the tax regime was adopted.
‘There is a broad political desire that owners should have benefits within the tax system. All electric vehicles are exempted, and we see that it now works’, the Minister of Finance Siv Jensen told DN.
So far this year, 14 percent of electric car sales were by Tesla.
Climate Minister Vidar Helgesen also believes the current policy should be continued.
‘We should continue the current policy because it works, but the individual elements included, and for how long, can be discussed’, said Helgesen to the newspaper Dagens Næringsliv.
‘But now we have a race to 2020. And 85 percent of the electrical cars produced are not Tesla’, said Helgesen, who himself drives an e-Golf.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today