Norway might insist on zero-emission vehicles by 2025

Norway's sparked a flurry of applause and misunderstanding in equal measure, with a report that the country is going to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2025.

The news came from a blog post hailing a paywalled story in Norwegian outlet Dagens Næringsliv, which was then enthusiastically endorsed by Elon Musk.

Just heard that Norway will ban new sales of fuel cars in 2025. What an amazingly awesome country. You guys rock!! pic.twitter.com/uAXuBkDYuR

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 3, 2016

At the small cost of an e-mail registration, El Reg read the Dagens Næringsliv article (with the help of Google Translate).

Sorry, Elon, but it's not a done deal.

What's happened in Norway is that a bunch of environmental measures have been agreed by the country's Conservative Party, Progress Party, Christian Democrats, and Liberals.

While those measures do include mandating that cars sold from 2025 be zero-emission (with a longer phase-out for heavy transport), no law has been passed.

Fixing the Google translation, the parties have agreed that the proposed National Transport plan for 2018-2029 will set “targets for the number of low- and zero-emission vehicles”, and that some of those targets will be implemented by 2025.

If the policy is adopted and put into effect “all new private cars, buses and light commercial vehicles” will be zero-emission. The Dagens Næringsliv report notes that by that time, the country's government environmental business Enova will be rolling out fuelling stations for hydrogen vehicles.

What's most significant about the agreement, Dagens Næringsliv reports, is that with parliamentary elections due in 2017, the deal makes it more likely that the policies will survive beyond the election. ®