International incentives and measures to promote electric vehicles

Within the program ”Forsøgsordning for elbiler” funded by the Danish Energy Agency, Ea Energy Analyses has carried out a project on ‘International incentives and measures to promote electric vehicles’.

By 2050 the Danish government’s target is to become independent of fossil fuels – including in the transport sector. Electric vehicles (EVs) are likely to become one of the cornerstone technologies to reach this target. However, in spite of economic incentives for car owners to invest in EVs, for example the exemption from the registration free, the sale of EVs today is far from the expected level. The same issue applies to the European Union, where the electric vehicle growth so far is not on pace to reach EU targets, and official EU targets do not conform with automobile producers future targets.

This project aimed to analyse international measures to ensure a wide introduction of EVs – measures that might be able to inspire the Danish policy. The analysis focused both on known and approved measures used on the EU level and on national level within the member states as well as new and untested concepts. In addition, both measures towards the buyers and the producers of EVs was considered with special focus on measures that tends to support the development of a market for EVs.