Electric cars on Norway's roads may soon replace petrol cars, but if this growth continues at the same pace it will take at least another five years before they overtake diesel cars.
Norway remains the leader in electric car sales, with approximately 90% of all new cars sold in the country since the start of this year being electric. The country is about to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, but they are still the majority on the road.
Although sales of new electric cars in Norway have easily outpaced sales of petrol and diesel models in recent years, figures from the Norwegian Public Roads Authority show that there are approximately 776,00 petrol cars in the country, 1,068,929 diesel cars, 339 724 hybrids and 700,358 electric cars.
Speaking to Reuters, senior researcher at the CICERO think tank Robbie Andrews said that the number of electric cars will soon exceed the number of petrol cars, but it will take at least five years to overtake that of diesels and that, at current popularity levels of electric cars.
„If this trend continues over the next 12 months, and given that sales of pure petrol cars are now negligible, next year or even this December there will be more new electric cars on the road than pure petrol cars “ , says Andrews.
Note that in January, electric cars accounted for 92.1% of all new cars sold in Norway. but the trend is towards decreasing interest. This indicator fell in March to 89.3%, partly due to higher interest rates and reduced tax benefits.
In 2023, the Norwegian government removed the VAT exemption for electric cars costing more than NOK 500,000 ($46,700), making them significantly more expensive.
And this was felt, albeit weakly, but there is a tendency towards a decrease in interest in electric cars in the country where most of them are bought. So, the probability that diesel cars will dominate the roads of this country for a long time is not at all small.