More electric cars than petrol cars in Norway for the first time
Every month, the industry looks to Norway – because the new registration figures for electric cars there are spectacular. In August, 94.3 per cent of newly registered cars were electric, which is a new record. For some time now, more than half of all newly registered cars in Norway each month have had a plug. For comparison, in the first eight months of this year, Germany’s BEV share of new registrations was just 12.7 per cent.
The Norwegian record figures also impact the total number of vehicles registered – and so the 16th of September will go down in the history books as the day on which, for the first time, more electric than petrol cars were registered there. According to official data from the Norwegian road authority OFV, there were 754,303 electric cars compared to 753,905 petrol cars on this date (although OFV has not taken hybrids into account – otherwise, electric cars would not yet have overtaken petrol cars).
“This is historic. A milestone that few people expected ten years ago. The electrification of the cars is progressing rapidly, and Norway is making great strides towards becoming the first country in the world with a fleet dominated by electric cars,” says OFV Director Øyvind Solberg Thorsen.
But anyone who thinks electric cars are generally ahead of combustion engines is mistaken. Almost one million diesel cars are registered in Norway, which means it is still the number one drive type. Specifically, there were 999,715 diesel cars on the reporting date. The OFV says that this figure is also falling, but with just over 10,000 new registrations per month, it will probably be around two years before electric cars overtake diesel cars in terms of numbers.
| Drive | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Diesel | 999,715 |
| Battery-electric | 754,303 |
| Petrol | 753,905 |
| Petrol plug-in-hybrid | 198,707 |
| Petrol hybrid | 155,307 |
| Diesel plug-in-hybrid | 9,478 |
| Diesel hybrid | 896 |
| Gas | 173 |
| Hydrogen | 167 |
| Total | 2,872,652 |
Over the last 20 years, more than one million petrol cars have disappeared from the Norwegian car fleet and have primarily been replaced by electric cars. The OFV expects the same trend to occur with diesel vehicles.
However, there is still a lack of affordable electric vehicles for low-income households. They traditionally buy used cars rather than new ones – and used electric cars are still in short supply. A study shows that in Norway, electric cars are primarily driven by wealthy customers.
ntb.no (in Norwegian)
0 Comments