One might not be able to purchase a gas-powered car in oil-rich Norway after 2025.
The move, said to be mulled by its four main political parties for some time now, could make the country the first to ban cars powered by diesel or petrol.
A June 3 tweet by Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk delivered the news. It showed a front-page image of the Norwegian paper Dagens Naeringsliv, accompanied by Musk’s words: “Just heard that Norway will ban sales of fuel cars by 2025. What an amazingly awesome country. You guys rock!”
According to the headline, the four parties have agreed on sending the energy message across: “Stop sales of diesel and gasoline vehicles in 2025.”
Several of its media outfits have reported that a draft of Norway’s 2018 to 2029 National Transport Plan set a zero emissions target from new cars by year 2025. It should be noted, however, that a goal of zero emissions vehicles is different from directly banning gas-powered cars, according to CNBC.
Democratic Party and Liberal Party representatives have corroborated the news story but reps from the two parties on the right told Norway’s largest newspaper Aftenposten that they are yet to arrive at a final agreement, Electrek wrote.
The European nation offers some of the most impressive tax incentives in the continent to electric vehicle buyers, yet majority of cars and vans it sells every year are gas-powered. Its automotive market is not a sizable one, too, at just more than 150,000 cars sold in 2015 – one of the smallest in Europe.
At any rate, the potential move is deemed a major step toward speeding up the adoption of electric vehicles around the world.
Norway’s progressive transportation plans include an ambitious goal to ban all private vehicles from downtown by 2019 – a strategy also considered by other cities in an effort to minimize smog.
Paris, too, has announced the second phase of its mission to ban pre-1997 cars from the city center, along with heavily incentivizing electric car ownership.
