How a pop group brought EVs to Norway | Axon’s Automotive Anorak

A true EV pioneer, Norway saw an overall plug-in vehicle market share standing at an average of 80 per cent throughout much of 2020, up from 60 per cent in 2019. The rest of the world still has a lot of catching-up to do!

The huge popularity of EVs in a cold, harsh climate such as Norway’s doesn’t quite stack up at first glance, as freezing hostile conditions can be tough on EVs and take their toll on battery strength, viability and life expectancy. So why has Norway embraced EVs more enthusiastically to-date than any other country on the planet?

The unlikely answer could lay in the globally popular mid-1980s Oslo-born synth pop group, A-ha! Bizarrely, this ‘80s pin-up band was instrumental in Norway introducing enticing world-leading electric vehicle taxation subsidies to encourage local motorists to switch over from internal combustion engines (ICE) to low-emission EV power.

According to an intriguing recent Twitter post by Robbie Andrew, a senior scientist working at Oslo’s CICERO Centre for International Climate Research, members of the local hero band A-Ha were highly influential in the Norwegian Government embracing EV car buyer incentives some years ago.   

The story seems to go that at their peak in 1989, two of the A-ha trio, namely schoolgirl heartthrob lead singer Morten Harket and keyboardist Magne Furuholmen, were in Switzerland with fellow Norwegian Frederic Hauge, a leading environmentalist and co-founder of the Bellona environmental group, to attend an EV conference.

Inspecting a contemporary Fiat Panda at the conference that had been privately converted to run on batteries, the two A-ha stars bought the car and took it back home to Norway. Once there, they enthusiastically drove the electric Fiat around Oslo, stubbornly refusing to pay local road tolls and ignored all the subsequent fines. In his enlightening tweet, scientist Andrew says. “On arrival in Norway, the regulations didn't accommodate the registration of electric cars, so the Panda couldn't legally be driven on the road. Since it had a propane-fuelled heater, just like a motor home, they registered it as a motor home.”

The A-ha pair’s antics in the Fiat EV quickly became folklore. They were unhappy with the disincentives to owning an electric car, including paying road tolls, so they repeatedly drove through toll stations without paying. Every time they did it, they received a fine, which they didn't pay, and according to the rules, the car was then confiscated. Andrew tweets: “When confiscated, the Panda was auctioned, but since no-one else wanted to buy the car, only our heroes were at the auction to buy it back again. They drove without paying tolls, car confiscated again, car auctioned again, bought back again... and this went on, and on, and on. The fine was 300 Norwegian Krone (£27) each time, and they bought the car back each time for 200 Norwegian Krone (£18).”

A-ha, Bellona and the Fiat were doing much to make EVs an acceptable and affordable option for the average Norwegian motorist as abhorrently high taxes made buying traditional cars there prohibitively expensive. They were subsequently cited as leading Norway’s Government to abolish road tolls for all EVs, a key incentive that resulted in the Country’s far-sited EV policy, with generous subsidies and other incentives offered to help expedite the nation’s dependence on polluting ICE cars.

That was way back in 1990. Ever since, beyond the scraping of road tolls, EVs have also been exempted from Norway’s substantial registration transfer fee which for new ICE cars ranges from 4,332 Krone (£371) for vehicles weighing up to 1,200kg, with up to 6,595 Krone (£565) for heavier cars, which includes most modern hatchbacks.

With Bellona’s expertise in clarifying the regulations to make it easier to later register electric cars in Norway, helped by A-ha’s high-profile involvement, local media interest and attention was very high. In 1996, the Government of the time caved and allowed the few EVs in Norway to travel for free on the country’s toll roads and ferry network.

That ruling came into effect in 1997 with just a handful of electric vehicles in use, so the local Government didn’t think that this decision was going to break the bank. This lasted until 2017, by which time EVs were dominating Norway’s new car market. EVs now attract 50 per cent of the full Norwegian road toll fees, still appealing enough to encourage EV drivers to ‘Stay on These Roads’ as ‘The Sun Always Shines on EV’ (sorry to any A-ha fans reading, but I just couldn’t resist!).

Since silently whisking around Oslo in that Panda back in 1990, A-ha singer Morten Harket in particular has remained an enthusiastic EV champion, teaming up with his two other band members last year to record a short Volkswagen Transporter EV van promotional film. It’s a shame it wasn’t for Fiat’s new electric 500 really, as this would have been more fitting to A-ha’s pioneering EV days and influence in that tiny Panda.

Fiat itself went on to introduce an all-electric ‘Elettra’ version of the original Panda in 1990 (possibly inspired by A-ha’s converted example), of which today’s newly-launched 500 is a direct descendant. At the time, Fiat set the goal of making its commitment to protecting the environment by transforming the standard Panda into an electric car, claiming to be the world’s first major vehicle manufacturer to produce such an EV. The 24PS (18kW) Panda Elettra might have been years ahead of the EV competition, but for its time it was too heavy, slow and costly to be a commercial success, and production stopped in 1998. That’s long before Norway, plus the rest of the world, had learned to ‘Take On EV’. Groan!