Esa Hyvärinen, a spokesman at Finnish government-controlled utility Fortum, said Thursday that electric vehicles should be exempt from the car tax, a registration levy, for a fixed period of time.
He drew a parallel to incentives enjoyed by wind power generation.

Speaking in Pori, Hyvärinen said that while the government's plan to lower annual duties levied from electric car owners was a step in the right direction, the incentives should be bigger than that.

He pointed out that Denmark and Norway had exempted electric cars from registration tax altogether.

"The best option would be for Finland too to completely lift the car tax on cars charged from the electricity grid for a fixed period in order to promote the entry of the cars on to the market," Hyvärinen said.

"In this way one could encourage the market to open up as well as the adoption of technology that is beneficial to the environment."

STT