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Last Updated on: 16th July 2025, 09:39 am

In a real-life story torn from the pages of Norway, the nonprofit organization Veloz is embarking on a $43.5 million consumer education campaign aimed at boosting EV sales in the US. That’s not a bad idea. After all, consumer education is credited with Norway’s #1 position in EV adoption…. Oh, wait … why not just give people subsidies?

EV Sales And The Norwegian Success Story, Part 1 …

Consumer education does deserve part of the credit for Norway’s EV sales success story. That was the theme of several conversations I had during a trip to Oslo in May. The people I spoke to felt that the government had done a good job of laying the groundwork early on, to make sure drivers were prepared for the inevitable electrification movement.

While Norway was doing that, over here in the US we had the right wing propagandist and “hate radio” personality Rush Limbaugh drilling his smarmy voice into the heads of listeners everywhere, loading them up with a nonstop whine about about the left wing plot to take away everyone’s god-given right to own a gas guzzler. He scorched GM when it rolled out the Chevy Volt gas-electric hybrid in 2010, and the hits kept on coming. Good times (see more Volt news here).

Meanwhile, 2021 Norway had cemented its reputation as a leader in EV sales, to the extent that General Motors highlighted the nation’s track record in a new ad campaign attempting to get US drivers past the partisan scare tactics.

Good luck with that. Norway was impossible to catch up with four years ago, and it still is. In June, plugins accounted for 97.7% of all new vehicles sold in the country.

… And, Part 2

Consumer education is just part of Norway’s success story, though. The key to success is combining effective public education with effective incentives, and that’s where Norway excelled. After all, money talks in Norwegian, too.

Norway got the ball rolling by taking advantage of its status as a nation without a domestic auto industry. All vehicles are in the country are imported, and they are taxed accordingly. So, all the way back in 1990 Norway simply exempted electric cars from paying any import tax at all.

The general idea of favoring EVs has persisted across the political spectrum in Norway ever since, according to the Norwegian EV Association, though some modification has taken place in recent years. For example, starting in 2023 EVs have been taxed progressively according to weight.

That still puts them ahead of gasmobiles, which Norway taxes according to CO2 and NOx emissions as well as weight.

“The overall signal from the majority of political parties is that it should always be economically beneficial to choose zero and low emission cars over high emission cars,” NEVA explains.

EV Sales: Follow The Money

NEVA also provides a long list of favorable financial treatment enjoyed by EV drivers in Norway over the years. Some perks have come and gone, while others have persisted, one example being discounts on ferry rides and toll roads.

The organization also cites the nation’s attention to building out the nation’s EV public charging station network work.

Over here in the US things are moving in the opposite direction. More than a dozen Republican-dominated states refused or slow-walked their share of funding through the federal NEVI (National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure) program, which was aimed at enabling states to establish a public fast-charging network along major highways. Republican President Donald Trump also suspended the program outright earlier this year. It has since been reinstated by the courts, but the damage was done.

President Trump also pushed for elimination of the $7,500 federal tax credit for new EVs, a request that the Republican majority in Congress obliged in its new tax bill, now known as OBBBA (the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act). The tax credit is due to run out on September 30 and most analysts anticipate an uptick in EV sales leading in the runup to the drop-dead date. After that, it’s anybody’s guess.

EV Sales And Consumer Education

Into this picture walks the organization Veloz and its windfall of $43.5 million. That could subsidize a lot of new EVs, but that’s not where the money is going.

Veloz received the money through Electrify America, which is the EV charging venture Volkswagen established back in 2016, as part of its “Dieselgate” settlement with the US Department of Environmental Protection.

Electrify America tasked Veloz with launching the first nonprofit-lead EV consumer education campaign in the US, under the banner “Electric For All.” It remains to be seen if the campaign can juice EV sales after the federal tax credit disappears, but it won’t be for lack of trying.

The campaign has enlisted actor/writer/woodworker Nick Offerman to do the voiceovers for a video series pitching the benefits of zero emission mobility.

“The program’s content highlights the everyday benefits that matter most to drivers, including cost savings from incentives and savings on gas, convenient charging options at home and on the go, driving range, affordability, and the variety of new and used EV models,” Veloz explains.

EV Sales For Thee, Not Me

If you’re thinking Volkswagen will use the spots as an opportunity to boost its own EV sales, that’s not part of the plan, at least not initially. The Ford Motor Company has a seat on the Veloz board of directors, which could explain how the new campaign ended up featuring Ford’s Mustang Mach-E and the F-150 Lightning front and center.

That’s…interesting! Those particular cars are not up there in the rarified territory of a Lucid Air, but they are not the least expensive EVs money can buy, either. On the plus side, upper-income households that can afford an electric Mustang or F-150 may continue to support the EV sales picture in the US even after the tax credit expires, and that’s the visual cue stamped onto the Electric for All campaign.

Still, the outreach effort casts a wide net. “At its core is ElectricForAll.org, which is a multilingual hub available in 15 languages, including English and Spanish,” Veloz explains. “It offers easy tools to compare new and used EVs, find available incentives by ZIP code, locate charging stations, and understand long-term cost savings, making EV ownership more accessible for every community.”

The timing is also of interest. According to Veloz, the campaign will run into 2026. That’s just one year ahead of the low-cost LFP battery that General Motors plans to introduce in 2027, aimed at driving down the up-front cost of buying an EV. Hold on to your hats…

Image (cropped): The EV charging venture Electrify America is putting up $43.5 million to launch a new ad campaign, aimed at boosting EV sales over the hump of the soon-to-vanish federal tax credit (courtesy of Electrify America).