Inland ( https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland )
*******************************************************************************************
*Think tank:* Danish electric cars have saved us 2 billion kroner in oil purchases during the Iran war
*******************************************************************************************
The war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have accelerated Danes' shift to electric cars, new figures show.
Charging stations at the dealer Semler Mobility in Gladsaxe on Thursday, 23 April 2026. (Photo: © Sebastian Elias Uth, Ritzau Scanpix) 40 min. ago
Since the war between Iran and the USA broke out on 28 February 2026, Danes have been so busy switching to electric cars that it has saved us nearly two billion kroner in oil imports.
This is shown by new figures from the think tank Ember, which focuses on the green transition.
And the savings have primarily benefited the car owners who have replaced their petrol or diesel car with an electric one, explains Mogens Fosgerau, professor of transport economics at the University of Copenhagen.
"That is quite a lot of money, and it is especially a lot of money in ordinary people's household budgets," he says.
On the other hand, the state treasury has missed out on revenue, because electric cars are not taxed in the same way as petrol and diesel cars.
"So in that sense, more electric cars are not a good deal for the state treasury," says Mogens Fosgerau.
-------------------------
Denmark is at the very top
-------------------------
According to the think tank Ember, Denmark is at the very top of the transition. In the wake of the Iran war, we have expanded our electric car fleet over six months by an amount equivalent to 13 percent of our oil imports in 2025. That is around 6.4 million barrels of oil that are not being imported.
Based on Ember's figures, Mogens Fosgerau has calculated that only Norway has achieved a greater effect from electric cars measured per inhabitant.
"We are far above the world average in terms of how many electric cars we have," says the professor.
The reason Danes' electric car enthusiasm has intensified is partly that we tax fossil cars relatively highly compared to many other countries.
"We have a high registration tax, which we have been able to offer as a huge discount to electric cars by exempting them from registration tax. And that has made them competitive compared to petrol cars," he says.
"It is a huge amount of money that you avoid paying in tax," he adds.
The figures also show that there is a big difference between EU countries' paths towards independence from oil. Denmark has reduced its oil dependence with an effect per inhabitant that is 7 times greater than the EU average.
Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=undefined )
Warning: This article was translated by a Large Language Model, in case of doubt, you can always visit the original source.