Environmental and economic expert Lars Gårn Hansen recommends that the government introduce higher taxes on electric cars earlier than planned. However, car importers fear this.
Environmental and economic expert Lars Gårn Hansen recommends that taxes on electric cars be raised earlier than planned.
Hansen, who is a professor at the Department of Food and Resource Economics at the University of Copenhagen, justifies the proposal with the increasing sales of electric cars.
– Sales of electric cars in Denmark are going so well that taxes on electric cars can be raised earlier than planned, he says in an interview with the Althing .
"This makes it possible to return to uniform taxes on electric and fossil-fuel cars sooner than planned."
In Denmark, electric cars have had a low registration tax for a number of years to promote sales and support a green transition of the transport sector. The current plan is to phase out this lower tax gradually towards 2035.
But the development is happening faster than expected. Electric cars took over the top spot in the Danish market in 2024. However, things look a bit different in both Sweden and Germany. Read more about it here .
In December of the same year, 61.5 percent of the 17,469 newly registered cars were electric, and the share of electric cars in total car sales in 2024 reached 51.5 percent.
An analysis from Mobility Denmark predicts that Denmark will have one million electric cars on the roads as early as 2028 if taxes remain unchanged. This is significantly earlier than the political goal of one million electric cars in 2030.
The sage Lars Gårn Hansen argues that the current tax rebates are no longer necessary to achieve the goal.
"When it turns out that you can achieve the goal using smaller tax rebates than you thought, it indicates that you need to adjust the instrument," he tells the Althing.
The issue of electric car taxes is expected to be raised politically soon. Minister of Taxation Rasmus Stoklund has announced negotiations with the parties in the Danish Parliament on the subject.
– I will spend a lot of effort in the coming months to arrange the tax system in a way that supports development after January 1, 2026, when the current agreement on taxes on electric cars expires, Rasmus Stoklund told Ritzau in December.
He also recognizes the importance of the tax system for electric car sales.
– The tax system has made it more attractive to buy electric cars, because they would otherwise have been much more expensive, especially in the first years.
– At the same time, there is a development underway where car manufacturers are making electric cars in several different price ranges, so the technology is also helping electric car sales.
