At the beginning of this year, 61,581 electric and hybrid cars were registered in Denmark, an increase of 142 percent over the last year, news wire Ritzau reports.

But the increase only represents 2.3 percent of the total number of private vehicles in Denmark, which totals 2.72 million.

The target of one million cars by 2030 was agreed in December last year by the government and left wing allies the Red Green Alliance, Social Liberal and Socialist People’s parties.

Although the overall ambition in relation to green cars is to increase their numbers on Danish roads to one million, the December deal secured a budget for 775,000 cars. That will be promoted by adjusting fees and taxes, for example by reducing the cost of owning a car with lower CO2 emissions.

READ ALSO: Denmark announces plan to put 775,000 electric cars on roads by 2030

Denmark’s car industry expects the number of low emissions cars to increase further in 2021.

“There’s no reason to think that the positive trend in relation to the green conversion in car parks won’t also continue this year,” Thomas Møller Sørensen, industry director for the Confederation of Danish Industry’s car sector, told Ritzau in a written comment.    

“We are hearing from car dealers that new green car taxes, open showrooms and holiday money payouts all together are giving a belief that we can also expect a doubling of the number of green cars on the roads in Denmark,” he added.