Over 80% of the new vehicles sold in Norway are electric. Moreover, one of the five cars currently running through the roads of Norway is an EV.
CBS News also reported almost four out of five newly registered cars in the country were electric vehicles in 2022, based on the statistics released on January 2nd.
Norway’s EV sales in 2022
According to the Norwegian Road Federation (OFV), 138,265 new electric vehicles were sold in the country last year. This number represents 79.3% of the total passenger car sales of 2022, beating the 64.5% record in 2021.
The automaker leading the auto industry in Norway is no other than Tesla, with a market share of 12.2%.
Norway’s EV Target and Efforts
Despite Norway being one of the leading oil and gas producers, the country aims to pioneer all new vehicles to be “zero emission” by 2025. It means that Norway would only start using electric or hydrogen-based vehicles.
In achieving a “zero emission” country, the marketing of EVs in Norway goes from having the following:
- benefits in being tax-free
- lower fares for road tolls
- charging a lower price for public parking and others.
In the first nine months of 2022, electric vehicles only make up 8.6% of the new cars registered in the European Union. Nonetheless, EV sales skyrocketed to 82.8% by December when Norwegians hurriedly bought EVs to avoid the tax change that will be imposed this year.
“Eight out of 10 people choosing fully electric instead of combustion engines is a considerable step towards Norway reaching its climate goal of 100% BEV [battery electric vehicle] sales in 2025. Our message to the rest of the world is crystal clear: Now there is no excuse for the internal combustion engines’ unnecessary pollution when the climate crisis is so urgent to solve.”
Christina Bu, Secretary General of the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association