– It is very unfortunate that the government is proposing to introduce a one-off tax on electric cars, at the same time that electric cars over NOK 500,000 also receive value added tax. This can lead to old cars with high emissions remaining on the road. The one-off tax for fossil and diesel cars, especially plug-in hybrids, is also increasing sharply, says Erik Andresen, director of the Bilimportørenes Landsforening (BIL).
The car industry has long been preparing for VAT to be introduced on electric cars over NOK 500,000, and the proposal for a weight tax on new electric cars of NOK 15 – 30,000 came as a great surprise.
– All new cars will be significantly more expensive next year. The consequence is that old cars with high emissions will remain on the road. This is very serious when we have to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 per cent by 2030. I expect that SV will look up for the climate in the budget negotiations, says Andresen.
I am also surprised that it is proposed to remove the advantages electric cars have in company car taxation, especially because it is company cars that are lagging behind in the green shift. With this proposal, there will still be many petrol and diesel cars in this segment, says Andresen.
The car industry has been prepared that VAT on electric cars will lead to the one-off tax for petrol and diesel cars also increasing, but the proposed increase is more extensive than expected, especially for plug-in hybrids where the weight deduction is reduced from 15 to 10 per cent.
– We were at full speed towards the goal that only zero-emission cars should be sold in 2025, but with this budget, the electric car and the green shift have suffered a severe setback. I am also unsure how the VAT on electric cars will be phased in technically. There is a very short deadline from when the budget is adopted in December to 1 January. This gives the industry a short deadline to change all invoice and finance systems, as well as leasing agreements, says Andresen.
He believes that 2023 will be a challenging year for the car industry. We have long had delivery problems for new cars due to a lack of components, particularly semiconductors. A sharp tax increase on top of increased interest and prices is not what we need, says Andresen.