In a recent article, The New York Times talked about the speed at which Norway has embraced electric cars. For new car sales last year, only 8% ran solely on gas or diesel. Two-thirds of new cars sold were electric, with most of the rest being hybrids. Contrast this with 2015, when only 20% of new car sales were electric.
Norway made a conscious decision to push the idea of electric cars – they tweaked things in their tax code so that it was advantageous for consumers to make the jump to electrics (which is interesting on another level given the fact that Norway is one of the top oil-producing countries in the world). But the article says that even though the incentives were a big help, Norwegians entered the electric market with many of the same skepticisms that Americans currently have – in other words, they needed to be won over by the product.
Incentives and tax policy and free markets and range anxiety and lack of charging infrastructure all are important points to consider and reasonably debate, but ultimately it comes down to the product: is the electric car a good enough product for someone to spend their money on? Looks like Norway has their answer.