Effectiveness of incentives on electric vehicle adoption in Norway

Abstract

Battery Electric vehicles (BEVs) shift pollution off the road and to potentially less damaging and more varied sources than petroleum. Depending on the source of electricity, a transition to electrified personal transportation can dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants. However current EVs tend to be more expensive and have shorter range, which can hinder public adoption. Government incentives can be used to alleviate these factors and encourage adoption. Norway has a long history incentivizing BEV adoption including measures such as exemption from roadway tolls, access to charging infrastructure, point of sale tax incentives, and usage of public bus use limited lanes. This paper analyzed the sales of electric vehicles on a regional and municipal basis in Norway and then cross analyzed these with the corresponding local demographic data and incentive measures to attempt to ascertain which factors lead to higher BEV adoption. It was concluded that access to BEV charging infrastructure, being adjacent to major cities, and regional incomes had the greatest predictive power for the growth of BEV sales. It was also concluded that short-range vehicles showed somewhat more income and unemployment sensitivity than long-range vehicles. Toll exemptions and the right to use bus designated lanes do not seem to have statistically significant predictive power for BEV sales in our linear municipal-level models, but this could be due to neighboring major cities containing those incentive features.

The role of demand-side incentives and charging infrastructure on plug-in electric vehicle adoption: analysis of US States

“…The presence of public charging infrastructure has a strong influence on vehicle purchases decisions. The result conforms to findings from studies that analyzed adoption trends in other countries like Norway (Zhang et al 2016, Mersky et al 2016. Early investments in infrastructure, even if they would be underutilized for some time, is likely to incentivize early adopters and result in a multiplying effect on PEV adoption (figure 5).…”

“…A few studies using actual sales data indicate that technological and contextual factors such as charging infrastructure remain a key barrier to PEV adoption (Sierzchula et al 2014 and incen-tivizing infrastructure buildup along with tax incentives and other non-monetary incentives may significantly increase adoption in the US (Jin et al 2014). Studies from Norway show that the density of public charging stations has the most impact on vehicle adoption, particularly BEVs, at the regional (Mersky et al 2016) and municipal level (Zhang et al 2016) while proximity to a big city with non-monetary incentives such as toll exemptions or parking exemptions increase BEV sales more than infrastructure itself.…”

Electric vehicle adoption: An analysis of best practice and pitfalls for policy making from experiences of Europe and the US

“…These incentives positively impacted BEV sales (Bjerkan, Nørbech, & Nordtømme, ) and were higher than offered by other European countries (Figenbaum et al ., , p. 54). While bus lane access and toll exemptions had lower impact than purchase incentives and adequate infrastructure (Mersky, Sprei, Samaras, & Qian, ), toll exemptions were the most cost effective of soft incentives offered (Fearnley, Pfaffenbichler, Figenbaum, & Jellinek, ). Active local government procurement policies were also positive (Figenbaum et al ., ).…”

A review of consumer preferences of and interactions with electric vehicle charging infrastructure

“…Whilst PEVs can be recharged from standard plug sockets, these sockets charge PEVs slowly and are not always easily accessible by vehicles. Developing dedicated infrastructure can encourage more consumers to purchase PEVs and allow them to drive more electric miles (Adepetu et al, 2016;Ajanovic and Haas, 2016;Bonges and Lusk, 2016;Caperello et al, 2015;Egbue and Long, 2012;Graham-Rowe et al, 2012;Javid and Nejat, 2017;Mersky et al, 2016;Ozaki and Sevastyanova, 2011;Plötz et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2016;Zheng et al, 2012). The development of this infrastructure needs to be carefully considered so that the benefits of infrastructure development can be maximised.…”