Electric car sales in Norway set new world record September 3, 2024

Ana Cunha-Busch
Sep 2, 2024
1 min read

By AFP - Agence France Presse

Electric car sales in Norway set new world record

Sales of electric cars in Norway reached a 94% share of the market in August - a new world record - according to statistics released on Monday, while sales in the rest of Europe stagnated.

Driven by the Tesla Model Y, which accounted for 18.8% of sales, and to a lesser extent Hyundai's Kona and Nissan's Leaf, electric vehicles accounted for 94.3% of new car registrations, the Norwegian Road Federation (OFV) said.

Norwegians bought 10,480 new EVs in August, bringing the total to 68,435 since the start of the year.

Elsewhere in Europe, high prices and insufficient infrastructure have hampered EV sales, while sales of hybrid models, which combine fossil fuel engines with electric batteries, have increased.

The Scandinavian country, a major oil and gas producer, has set itself a target of selling only zero-emission vehicles by 2025, 10 years ahead of the EU target.

The country offers generous tax breaks that make electric models competitive in terms of price.

“No country in the world comes close to Norway in the electric car race,” said OFV director Oyvind Solberg Thorsen in a statement.

“If this trend continues, we will soon be on our way to achieving our goal of 100 percent zero-emission cars by 2025,” he said.

By comparison, electric cars accounted for 12.1% of new car sales in the EU in July, behind gasoline cars with 33.4%, full hybrids with 32%, and diesel cars with 12.6%, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association.