EVs on track to overtake petrol cars in Norway in 2024

Electric cars could overtake petrol cars in Norway - possibly even this year. According to the latest data, the lead of petrol-only cars is now only 76,000 vehicles and is shrinking further month by month.

According to data from the Norwegian Road Administration OFV, battery-electric cars accounted for 24.3 per cent of the 2.9 million cars in Norway on 15 March. Meanwhile, petrol cars accounted for 26.9 per cent of the total. This corresponds to a lead of almost 76,000 petrol cars – significantly less than the 104,590 new BEVs sold in Norway last year. Thus it could be less than a

A look at last month’s registration figures illustrates the speed at which electric cars are catching up with petrol cars: In the first quarter, 20,073 new electric cars hit the roads in Norway, while in the same period, the OFV only registered 196 new petrol cars, for a total of 44 new petrol car registrations in January. If the figure remains at just under 20,000 more electric cars than petrol cars per quarter, electric cars would remain just behind petrol cars until the end of the year. However, only new registrations are included, not vehicle deregistrations – and January was not only a weak month for petrol cars, but also for electric cars.

The lead ahead of electric cars by diesel cars on Norwegian roads was just under 370,000 diesel cars. It is therefore likely to take another three to four years for BEVs to overtake diesel cars. Most recently, diesels were able to make slight gains again in March to a 2.0 per cent market share of new registrations. However, this is no comparison to electric cars (89.3 per cent).

In addition to the incentives for electric cars – which are currently being discussed again and have already been cut – another political decision will ensure that electrically powered cars will sooner or later overtake combustion engines in the fleet: Norway, with its population of around 5.5 million, wants to become the first country globally to end the sale of pure petrol and diesel cars. However, the practical impact is rather small, as pure combustion engines only had a market share of 2.8 per cent recently anyway.

Hybrid cars are already the smallest group with 339,724 units. They are (still) followed by electric cars with 700,358 existing vehicles according to the Reuters chart, only just behind petrol cars with 776,003 vehicles. Only the diesel-only fleet, with 1,068,929 units, has an almost seven-digit figure.

reuters.com