Transportation

Norway made history in 2020 by selling more EVs than gas-powered cars

Audi and Tesla led the way.

by
Deep Ballu
January 8, 2021

Image: Unsplash

Ten years ago, electric vehicles held only 1% of the car market in Norway. A decade later, much has changed, and it is in favor of battery-powered vehicles. In 2020, more electric cars were sold than gas-powered cars in Norway. That’s a significant milestone for a country that heavily incentivizes the sale of electric vehicles and doesn’t plan to stop any time soon.

That makes Norway the first country where electric vehicles outsold cars running on internal combustion engines.

According to the Norwegian Road Federation (OFV), electric vehicle manufactures made 54.3% of all new vehicles sold in Norway in 2020. On a year-to-year basis, that’s almost a 12% increase in sales.

Furthermore, if we include hybrid vehicles in this report, the combined market share would be 83%, leaving diesel and petrol cars with just 7% share.

Oeyvind Thorsen, the CEO of OFV, said in a news conference that Norway is well on track to reach its most ambitious target: stop selling petrol and diesel cars by 2025.

Audi’s e-Tron was the most popular electric vehicle in Norway. In contrast, Tesla’s mid-sized Model 3 turned out the second most sought-after electric vehicle.

Norway is the biggest producer of crude oil in its part of Europe and uses extensive tax breaks to boost the sales of EVs. Thanks to its revenue from crude oil, Norway managed to significantly increase its sovereign wealth fund that now weighs $1.3 billion. Norway was able to make significant investments in renewable energy and incentivize EV sales with this fund.

Many EVs are more affordable than similar cars running on an internal combustion engine because of those incentives. Additionally, EV owners get to enjoy perks such as lower fees of toll roads and state ferries. They can drive on bus lanes, and so on. Then there are the 10,000 charging points in Norway that are publicly available.

That makes Norway the world leader in taking polluting vehicles off the roads. From the look of things, they are also going to remain in this position in the coming years.

What do you think? Plan on making the switch to an electric vehicle soon? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.