Abstract:

Norway is an interesting case with its higher share of Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and PHEVs, and the policies to favor zero emission automobiles seem stronger, than in any other country. The purpose of this paper is to describe the car ownership structure using longitudinal Norwegian administrative data from 2011 to 2017. In this chapter, the authors aim to shed light on two separate questions using regression analysis. The first section presents the conditional association between demographics and car ownership status of households. In the second section, they attempt to figure out whether BEVs come in addition to a household’s existing car(s), or as a replacement for it. The results show that socioeconomic characteristics are strong predictors of the car portfolio. BEV ownership is increasing in wealth, income and education. While early BEV owners differed from other car owners, over time BEV owners have become more similar to other car owners. The authors document a strong association between BEV privileges on the travel to work (like toll road exemptions and bus lane access) and BEV ownership. The buyers of BEV are less likely to sell their old car than other car buyers, but over time, this gap has diminished.