| HN Mirror

One can argue that the tax revenue losses would be uncomfortably noticeable without the interests extracted from the investments of the oil and gas money. However I’d say it’s more about Norways position on new cars being a luxury good and taxed as so. Which meant that the Norwegian government could make buying electric cars cost half as much as the alternative over night, simply by dropping retail taxes on them to zero. Add another subsidy in the form of reduced annual ownership taxes, and buying unused (electric) cars suddenly became obtainable to a large group. Not to mention simply a stupidly good deal for those without special needs, like living/operating in the less dense areas to the north where the sun doesn’t shine half a year at a time (and the temperatures follow accordingly).

You should be able to reproduce it most places though. Just declare new non-electric vehicles a luxury only for the rich and set taxes on new cars to 100%+. (Be sure to define businesses as rich and have popular agreement that they’re unviable if not.) Sell it to current owners as a massive boost to the used price they can get. Then drop the taxes on electric vehicles. After the transition to all new sales being electric, reintroduce the luxury taxation on all vehicles like what Norways government is currently doing, and you’ll get a small boost to the nations finances if you didn’t originally have it.