Photo: Opel
Norway is an oddly shaped country whose sole purpose appears to be denying Sweeden and Finland access to the Norwegian Sea. It's thinly spread over the North-Western coast of the Scandinavian Peninsula covering way too much ground for its roughly five million inhabitants.
But having fewer people living there than in New York City also means its automobile market can be influenced a lot more easily and changes will have a direct impact more quickly. And since Norwegians are the kind of people who like the outdoors and breathing in fresh air, the country's government decided to support the adoption of plug-in electric cars.
With relatively vast distances to cover - at least by European standards - the Nordic country doesn't sound like the best place to try something like that, and yet it worked. This June, electric car sales registered a record value for Norway accounting for 42 percent of total new registrations.
That number includes both plug-in hybrids and plug-in battery-powered electric vehicles, with the latter outnumbering the former by a small margin. In August, the local market for plug-in cars managed to go over 40 percent once more (40.2%), which is all the more impressive since it didn't benefit from the Opel Ampera-e (European Chevrolet Bolt) spike that happened in June.
Volkswagen e-Golf remains the top seller, but the rest of the chart has changed dramatically. Tesla is left out of the podium (something that will definitely change once the Model 3 eventually becomes available on these shores) with the BMW i3 swooping the second place and the Nissan LEAF (probably heavily discounted as the new generation approaches) coming in third.
Fourth is Europe's overall best-selling EV, the Renault ZOE, and then the two Tesla models with the S barely beating the X by 18 units. Finally, there were also 61 new registrations for the Opel Ampera-e, which were probably leftovers from the same shipment that caused the June record.
The Norwegian market may not be showing a steady growth from month to month for PHEVs and BEVs, but it does reveal consistently beating last year's numbers, and usually by more than 25 percent. While we don't know how much the sales have grown overall, we doubt we're talking about a similar percentage, so the plug-in vehicles are spreading.
100 percent by 2025 does not seem impossible, especially since by then the Norwegians will have a vastly increased number of models to choose from. Just watch this year's Frankfurt Motor Show and you'll get an idea of the things to come.
With relatively vast distances to cover - at least by European standards - the Nordic country doesn't sound like the best place to try something like that, and yet it worked. This June, electric car sales registered a record value for Norway accounting for 42 percent of total new registrations.
That number includes both plug-in hybrids and plug-in battery-powered electric vehicles, with the latter outnumbering the former by a small margin. In August, the local market for plug-in cars managed to go over 40 percent once more (40.2%), which is all the more impressive since it didn't benefit from the Opel Ampera-e (European Chevrolet Bolt) spike that happened in June.
Volkswagen e-Golf remains the top seller, but the rest of the chart has changed dramatically. Tesla is left out of the podium (something that will definitely change once the Model 3 eventually becomes available on these shores) with the BMW i3 swooping the second place and the Nissan LEAF (probably heavily discounted as the new generation approaches) coming in third.
Fourth is Europe's overall best-selling EV, the Renault ZOE, and then the two Tesla models with the S barely beating the X by 18 units. Finally, there were also 61 new registrations for the Opel Ampera-e, which were probably leftovers from the same shipment that caused the June record.
The Norwegian market may not be showing a steady growth from month to month for PHEVs and BEVs, but it does reveal consistently beating last year's numbers, and usually by more than 25 percent. While we don't know how much the sales have grown overall, we doubt we're talking about a similar percentage, so the plug-in vehicles are spreading.
100 percent by 2025 does not seem impossible, especially since by then the Norwegians will have a vastly increased number of models to choose from. Just watch this year's Frankfurt Motor Show and you'll get an idea of the things to come.
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