The Nordic EV Summit took place in Oslo, Norway’s EV capital, last week. Jeanette Shaw, Forth’s Sr. Director of Public Affairs and Policy (pictured here with Oslo’s Mayor, Marianne Borgen) attended the summit along with approximately 500 other attendees representing over 24 countries. Jeanette also attended the gathering of EV Driver Associations.

The Nordic region – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – has one of the highest ratios of electric cars per capita in the world. Taken together, the Nordic countries represent the third-largest electric car market by sales volume in the world, after the People’s Republic of China (China) and the United States. One out of 16 cars on Norwegian roads is electric and over 80% of vehicles sold in Norway last month were electric vehicles.

Nordic policy support has significantly influenced electric car adoption. In particular, policies that reduce the purchase price of electric vehicles are the main drivers. Other factors include reduced taxes, local incentives, waivers and/or partial exemptions on road use charges, free parking, etc.

A stable and predictable policy framework has been a key element in the success of electric cars in Norway, in particular. Decarbonization goals and EV deployment targets are the key drivers behind the policy support.

Jeanette spoke on the “Learning From Leaders” panel which included Fraser Crichton, Transportation Officer at Dundee City Council in Scotland; the Honorable Oleksii Riabchyn, Ukranian Parliament and Erik Lorentzen representing the Norwegian EV Association. Jeanette highlighted Forth’s work with Hacienda, LLC, its electrifying community car sharing program and the importance of incentives such as the electric vehicle incentive in Oregon and the Federal sales tax incentive, which is in jeopardy, to reduce the purchase price of electric vehicles. In addition, the need for a stable and predictable federal policy framework and mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) is needed to reduce the risk for investors and encourage manufacturers to scale up production.

In addition to riding in one of Oslo’s first electric buses by BYD, standing in Applied Autonomy’s driverless shuttle [“We operate like mobile phones on wheels,” states, Olav Madland, CEO of Applied Autonomy], Jeanette sat in the new NIO ES8 (built in China) and was welcomed by Nomi, the ES8 concierge and in-car Artificial Intelligence (AI) system.