Electric cars outnumber petrol cars in Norway

Electric cars outnumber petrol cars in Norway for the first time ever, an industry organisation said on Tuesday.

Of the 2.8 million private cars registered in the Scandinavian country, 754,303 are all-electric, compared to 753,905 that run on petrol, the Norwegian Road Federation (OFV) said in a statement.

Diesel models remain most numerous at just under one million, but their sales are falling rapidly.

“This is historic. A milestone few saw coming 10 years ago,” OFV director Oyvind Solberg Thorsen said in a statement.

“The electrification of the fleet of passenger cars is going quickly, and Norway is thereby rapidly moving towards becoming the first country in the world with a passenger car fleet dominated by electric cars,” OFV director Oyvind Solberg Thorsen said.

Norway, pardoxically a major oil and gas producer, has set a target to sell only zero-emission vehicles — mostly EVs since the share of hydrogen cars is so small — by 2025, 10 years ahead of the EU’s goal.

In August, all-electric vehicles made up a record 94.3 percent of new car registrations in Norway, boosted by sales of the Tesla Model Y.

In a bid to electrify road transport to help meet Norway’s climate commitments, Norwegian authorities have offered generous tax rebates on EVs, making them competitively priced compared to fuel, diesel and hybrid cars.

Norway’s EV success is in sharp contrast to struggles seen elsewhere in Europe.

Electric car sales began falling at the end of 2023, and now account for just 12.5 percent of new cars sold on the continent.

Vanguard