Nine out of 10 new cars in the country are now battery-powered, and the goal is to reach 100% this year.
Norway leads the world in the use of electric cars, which last year accounted for nine out of ten new vehicles sold in the country. Can other nations learn from this?
Oslo-based car dealer Harald A Møller has been importing Volkswagen vehicles for over 75 years, but said goodbye to fossil fuel cars at the beginning of 2024.
Now, all passenger vehicles for sale in its showroom are electric.
“We believe it is wrong to advise a customer who comes here today to buy a car with ICE [motor de combustão interna]because the future is electric”, says the dealership’s managing director, Ulf Tore Hekneby, as he passes among the cars on display.
“High battery life, fast charging speed. Hard to go back.”
On the streets of Oslo, the capital of Norway, battery-powered cars are nothing new, they are the norm.
Just take a look around and you’ll soon notice that almost every other car has an “E”, which stands for “electric”, on the license plate.
The Nordic nation of 5.5 million people has adopted electric vehicles (EVs) faster than any other country and is poised to become the first to phase out the sale of new cars powered by fossil fuels.
Last year, the number of electric cars on Norwegian roads exceeded that of petrol cars for the first time. If we include diesel vehicles, electric cars account for almost a third of all cars on Norwegian roads.
And 88.9% of new cars sold in the country last year were electric vehicles, up from 82.4% in 2023, according to data from the Norwegian Road Federation.
In some months, sales of fully electric cars reached 98%, while purchases of new petrol or diesel cars were virtually non-existent.
By contrast, in the UK, electric cars accounted for just 20% of new registrations in 2024. Although this was a record, compared to 16.5% in 2023.
In the US this percentage was only 8% last year, but higher than the previous year’s 7.6%.
Norway is undoubtedly a pioneer in the field of electric vehicles, but this electric revolution has been underway for three decades.
“It all started in the early 1990s,” says Christina Bu, general secretary of the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association, as she drove me around Oslo in an electric minivan.
“Gradually, cars with petrol and diesel engines were taxed more, so much so that it became much more expensive to buy this type of vehicle, while electric cars became tax-free.”
The electric vehicle incentive was first introduced to help two Norwegian car manufacturers, producers of the first electric vehicles, Buddy (formerly Kewet) and TH!NK City. Although they have abandoned the market, the incentives for more sustainable vehicles have remained.
“Our goal is to make the choice of zero emissions always a valid and feasible option,” says Norwegian Deputy Transport Minister Cecilie Knibe Kroglund.
Although it is a major oil and gas producer, Norway wants all new cars sold in the country to be “zero-emission” starting in 2025. The non-binding target was set in 2017, and that goal is now within reach of the country.
“We are getting closer to the goal and I think we will reach it,” adds Kroglund. “I think we’ve already made the transition to passenger cars.”
According to her, the secret of Norway’s success is predictable and long-term policies.
Instead of banning combustion engine vehicles, the government targeted consumer choices. In addition to penalizing fossil fuel vehicles with higher taxes and registration fees, VAT (value added tax) and import duties have been abolished for low-emission cars.
A variety of benefits were subsequently offered, such as free parking, discounted tolls and access to bus lanes.
For comparison, the European Union plans to ban sales of new fossil fuel-powered cars by 2035, and the current UK government wants to ban sales in 2030.
The sale of petrol and diesel cars is still allowed in Norway. But few choose to buy them.
For many locals, like Ståle Fyen, who bought his first electric vehicle 15 months ago, the electric option makes economic sense.
“With all the incentives we have in Norway and no taxes on electric vehicles, this was very important for us in financial terms,” he says as he plugs his car into a charging station in the capital.
“In the cold, the range is maybe 20% less, but still, with the large charging network we have here in Norway, this is not a big problem,” adds Fyen.
“You just have to change your mindset and recharge when you can, not when you need to.”
Merete Eggesbø, who also drives an electric vehicle, says that in 2014 she was one of the first people in Norway to own a Tesla.
“I really wanted a car that didn’t pollute. It would make me more aware while driving.”
At Norwegian petrol stations, many fuel pumps have been replaced by fast charging points and there are now more than 27,000 public charging points across Norway.
For comparison, there are 73,699 in the UK, a country 12 times larger in terms of population.
This means that for every 100,000 people, Norway has 447 chargers, while the UK only has 89, according to a recent report.
Tesla, Volkswagen and Toyota were the best-selling electric vehicle brands in Norway last year. Meanwhile, Chinese-owned brands – such as MG, BYD, Polestar and XPeng – now account for 10% of the market, according to the Norwegian Road Federation.
Norway, unlike the United States and the European Union, has not imposed tariffs on imports of Chinese electric vehicles.
Bu says there’s “really no reason why other countries can’t copy Norway.” However, he adds that “it all comes down to doing it in a way that can work in each country or market.”
According to her, Norwegians are no more concerned about the environment than people in other places.
“I don’t think a sustainable mindset has much to do with it. It has to do with strong policies and people gradually understanding that it is possible to drive an electric car.”
However, Norway is also a very wealthy nation which, thanks to its huge oil and gas exports, has a sovereign wealth fund worth over $1.7 trillion. This means it can more easily cover the costs of large infrastructure construction projects and absorb the loss of tax revenue from the sale of petrol and diesel cars and their fuels.
The country also has an abundance of renewable hydropower, accounting for 88% of its generating capacity.
“Today a third of cars are electric and in a few years this percentage will exceed 50%,” says Kjell Werner Johansen of the Norwegian Center for Transport Research.
“I think the government accepts that some new petrol or hybrid cars are still on the market, but I don’t know anyone who wants to buy a diesel car currently.”
Source: Terra
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