A-ha is a Norwegian band that was best known to the world for its movie-comic song Take on me. The song was written in the 1980s, around the same time A-ha, together with the environmental organization Bellona, began to draw attention to the problem of polluting combustion cars. It was a rather peculiar fight, involving a converted to electric Fiat Panda, which was alternately requisitioned and repurchased.
A-ha, take on me and the electric little Fiat
Let’s start with a song. Anyone born in the 1980s or earlier will associate it with their childhood or youth:
Morten Haket (seen above), almost from the beginning of its popularity, demanded that world leaders start doing something about the greenhouse effect, which was gradually heating up the Earth’s atmosphere. In his view, ordinary people could counteract air pollution by switching to electric cars. He himself started with a Fiat Panda converted to electric, which the Bellona organization bought and imported in 1989 from Switzerland when it saw an identical one at the Tour de Sol trade show (source).
A Fiat Panda purchased in Switzerland by the Bellona environmental organization. Morten Haket is first from the left, with Prof. Harald Rostvik, one of the co-founders of the idea of civil disobedience to force privileges for electric cars, and Frederic Hauge, co-founders of Bellona, crouching next to him. Seated in the car is Magne Furuholmen, the other member of the A-ha team (c) Bellona
As the Bellona organization recalls, registering the Panda was a nightmare and it could fit a maximum of two people inside – and that’s provided they held their breath and gave up lunch beforehand, because instead of a rear bench seat there was a 12-volt battery bank. The electric was charged by dropping an extension cord from the window of the organization’s office, it took 48 hours (!), the range of the car was 45 kilometers.
Haket, along with other members of the team and the organization, drove it around Oslo, but as part of civil disobedience, they did not pay at the gates. They also did not pay tolls and parking fees (source; worth seeing for a contemporary version of the above photo). In doing so, they demanded that the legislature introduce privileges for electric cars to help people decide to buy them.
The Norwegian law at the time, however, was unmoved, as were the police who enforced it. Fines were imposed on the car’s owner, and the vehicle was requisitioned against them. The electric Panda was then sold at auctions, where the only interested parties were…. A-ha band members. The little Fiat was returned to circulation “at least a dozen times” to serve a better cause again. The whole action lasted a total of seven years, when privileges for electric cars were introduced in Norway.
Today, Norway is the world’s vanguard when it comes to electric cars. On the road, they already account for nearly 25 percent of all vehicles; from the beginning of this year until the end of August 2023, they accounted for 83 percent of all new cars:
A note from the editors: we thought of a reminder of the A-ha team’s efforts after passing along this twit with an intriguingly clad Tesla Model Y.
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Na, von welchem 80er-Jahre Musikvideo ist der Look inspiriert? pic.twitter.com/Kkopst8CeO— Vanessa Lisa Oelmann (@VLOelmann) October 7, 2023