Electric cars set to overtake petrol cars in Norway

By the end of the year, there will be more BEVs in the car fleet than petrol. Diesels could overtake petrol in 2028.

By: Alberto Carmone

Apr 6, 2024 at 8:42am ET

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According to an analysis by Reuters, the number of electric cars in Norway could overtake petrol cars by the end of 2024 or early 2025 at the latest.

This historic overtake is approaching, in short, thanks in part to generous incentives from the Oslo government, fuelled by wealth from the sale of oil and gas abroad. At the same time, Reuters notes that it will take BEVs a little longer to overtake diesels.

The situation

If we go into the details of the analysis, as at 15 March, BEVs accounted for 24.3% of the 2.9 million passenger cars in Norway, compared with 26.9% for petrol vehicles (data from the Norwegian administration).

As mentioned above, the situation is different when it comes to diesel cars, of which there are still around 370,000 in Norway. In this respect, analysts estimate that it will be another three to four years before electric cars overtake diesel models.

Sales are slowing, but the way is clear

Ingvild Kilen Roerholt, head of transport research at the Zero think tank in Oslo, also noted that the number of BEVs could overtake the number of petrol cars in Norway this year, despite the recent slowdown in sales.

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Although sales of new electric cars fell by around a quarter in 2023, the share of BEVs reached 92.1% in January 2024 (data from the Norwegian Road Federation, OFV). In March, the share was 89.3%, while overall sales of new cars fell by 49.7% year-on-year, due to a variety of factors, including high interest rates for financing.

Among other things, in 2023, the Norwegian government abolished the value-added tax exemption for BEVs costing more than NOK 500,000 (around £37,000). Despite this, the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association predicts that fully electric cars will account for 95% of sales this year.

Source: Reuters