The latest statistics released by the Norwegian Road Information Administration (OFV) show that although Norway has set a historical record for new car sales in the past two years, sales this year have declined significantly. However, as the country with the highest penetration rate of new energy vehicles in the world, Norway’s electric vehicle market share has ushered in further growth.
A total of 10,348 new car registrations were registered in Norway in November this year, down 47% compared to the same period last year. Of these newly registered vehicles, 8,442 were pure electric vehicles and 938 plug-in hybrid vehicles were registered.
This shows that in November, there were 9,380 EV registrations in Norway, accounting for 90.6% of the market share. That compares with 87% and 84.2% in September and October, respectively.
Looking at the overall situation from January to November this year, the cumulative number of new car registrations in Norway was 114,770 units, a year-on-year decrease of 14.9%.
In terms of model-specific sales, the Tesla Model Y became the best-selling model in Norway with 1,496 registrations in November. This is followed by the Skoda Enyaq and Toyota bZ4X with 565 and 564 registrations respectively. The Hyundai Kona ranks fourth with 466 registrations, while the Toyota RAV4 ranks fifth with 447 registrations.
Notably, only 59 petrol-powered passenger cars were registered in Norway in November. Sales of petrol-powered passenger cars in Norway were 1,310 in the first 11 months of this year, giving it a market share of less than 1.1%. According to statistics, the number of petrol-powered passenger cars in Norway has dropped by 1 million over the past 23 years.
Although Norway is a country rich in oil resources, it is also the first country in the world where electric vehicle sales exceeded fossil fuel vehicles in 2020. This achievement is mainly due to incentives such as toll reductions, bus lane use and parking concessions. In Norway, buying a pure electric car is exempt from purchase tax, import tax and value-added tax, and you can save at least 50% on tolls when driving on the road.
Norway plans to sell only pure electric vehicles by 2025, which has also attracted many Chinese new energy vehicle companies to set up sales points in Norway. Currently, Chinese brands such as NIO, Lantu, Xpeng, Hongqi and BYD have begun selling new energy vehicles locally. However, no Chinese car brand has yet entered the top 20 list of Norwegian car sales. For reference, the BMW i4, the country’s lowest-selling model, only sold 62 units in November, which means Chinese automakers led by NIO are still selling in the dozens in Norway.
