According to a new report from Norway’s Road Federation, more than half of the cars sold in the country during 2020 were electric vehicles (EVs). Internal combustion engine (ICE) cars only made up 17 percent of vehicles sold (8 percent were petrol and 9 percent were diesel). Electric hybrid vehicles made up the balance of the sales.
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Norway’s most popular EVs in 2020 included the Audi e-tron, Hyundai Konda, Nissan Leaf, VW Golf and the Tesla Model 3. They totalled 54 percent of all cars sold during the year. This means that electric hybrids made up 29 percent of all vehicles sales.
The boom of EVs in Norway has been a calculated move, with the country investing heavily in electric infrastructure and giving citizens major incentives to purchase EVs. Ironically, the Norway’s capabilities to invest heavily in an electric future comes from its wealth in oil. When Norway started extracting oil and natural gas in massive amounts from the newly discovered North Sea Oil reservoirs, it made the decision to build a sovereign wealth fund with the revenue. It sells the vast majority of oil extracted and the government uses these funds to further its green goals.
The large subsidies on EVs the government offers citizens from the wealth fund include no purchase or import taxes, no road tax and either free or heavily discounted fees for toll roads, parking, ferries and company car tax. Citizens driving EVs are also entitled to use bus lanes and receive subsidies for scrapping older, fossil fuel-powered vehicles.
On the other hand, Norway has made buying ICE cars a lot more expensive. It has increased the tax burden on these vehicles, which also had a major effect on many people’s shift to EVs. The country expects to end the sale of ICE cars completely by the year 2025.
