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Norway Sets New EV Sales Record in 2021, Wants Even More in 2022

Norway set another record in 2021, and it is about electric vehicles again. Despite the global chip crisis, electric vehicle sales dominated the market and made up 64.5 percent of sales in 2021, which is the highest percentage ever achieved by them.
Tesla Model 3 10 photos
Photo: Tesla Motors
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As the Norwegian Electric Car Association notes, several months had seen EVs cover over 70 percent market share, while December ended at 67 percent. The country's record month in terms of EVs sales market share was September, with 77.5 percent of all vehicles sold in the country being battery electric vehicles.

The same association noted that 83.1 percent of private buyers went for an EV, while businesses and leasing enterprises had an EV share of 42.6 percent. In other words, more than eight in ten Norwegians who bought a car for themselves last year chose an EV, while four in ten companies went for EVs as well. The figures are impressive, to say the least, and there are several incentives behind them.

Tesla is the most popular brand in Norway, beating Volkswagen's 11-year success story. The Model 3 was the number one favorite for Norwegian customers, followed by Toyota's RAV4 EV, and Volkswagen's ID.4. Tesla’s Model Y achieved fourth place.

Volvo's XC40 ranked fifth, followed by the Ford Mustang Mach-E, Audi's e-tron, and the Škoda Enyaq. It is worth noting that Hyundai sold 7,715 EVs in Norway in 2021, while Mercedes sold 5,750, and BMW sold 4,605 units. Out of 10,355 Audis sold in 2021 in Norway, 9,636 were electric vehicles, which is a 93-percent share of sales figures, as the association notes.

It is the first time that an all-electric vehicle manufacturer gets to be the most popular vehicle brand in Norway. The country has a population of 5.4 million (about twice the population of Arkansas), and it prides itself on having the world's highest proportion of electric vehicles, even though the country extracts, refines, and sells oil.

Norway has made plans to stop the sale of diesel and gasoline-engined vehicles by 2025 and will continue to offer tax breaks for owners of electric vehicles in 2022 as well. It is unclear whether the tax break for EVs owners will continue after 2022, but that is a matter for the country's government to decide.
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Editor's note: For illustration purposes, the photo gallery features the Tesla Model 3, Norway's best-selling new vehicle in 2021.

About the author: Sebastian Toma
Sebastian Toma profile photo

Sebastian's love for cars began at a young age. Little did he know that a career would emerge from this passion (and that it would not, sadly, involve being a professional racecar driver). In over fourteen years, he got behind the wheel of several hundred vehicles and in the offices of the most important car publications in his homeland.
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