The electrification of new cars will rise rapidly over the next few years, the Finnish automotive industry predicts.
According to the Finnish Central Organisation for Motor Trades and Repairs (AKL) and the Association of Automobile Industry in Finland, electrification is advancing on all fronts as all-electric cars and rechargeable hybrids become more common.
The automotive industry expects the share of rechargeable cars to rise to just over 40 percent by 2025. The main driver of development is the EU's CO2 emissions targets for car manufacturers, which call for an increase in the share of electric cars.
"Electrification is progressing in the car market without changes in fuel or consumption taxes. At current tax levels, the operating costs of electric cars are already clearly lower than those of cars with internal combustion engines," Tero Kallio, managing director of the automobile industry association said in a press release on Monday.
For the next couple of years, rechargeable hybrids will remain more popular than all-electric cars, but fully-electrics are projected to gain popularity, especially after 2025.
The range and availability of rechargeable cars will improve significantly towards the end of the decade, and purchase prices will gradually approach parity with those for cars with standard internal combustion engines, the industry lobbies said.
Less than 10,000 EVs on Finnish roads so far
Just over 600,000 rechargeable cars are projected to be on Finnish roads by the end of the decade. However, this will require determined investment in the charging infrastructure to make it feasible for households and businesses to buy rechargeable cars, the automotive groups said.
They propose that taxation of new cars be phased out and replaced by an annual tax, arguing that this would speed up the rejuvenation and electrification of the nation's car fleet.
This would boost the number of rechargeable cars to almost 750,000 cars by 2030, the organisations estimate.
The government has set a goal of some 700,000 electric cars by 2030. So far Finland has lagged well behind its Nordic neighbours in the adoption of electric vehicles.
As of the end of 2020, there were still less than 10,000 fully electric cars on Finnish roads, along with just over 45,000 plug-in hybrids.