Electric vehicles accounted for almost four out of every five new car registrations in Norway last year, setting a new record, according to figures released Monday.
Led by US carmaker Tesla, which topped the list with a 12.2 per cent market share, 138,265 new electric cars were sold in the Scandinavian country last year, representing 79.3 per cent of total passenger car sales, the Norwegian Road Federation (OFV) said in a statement.
In doing so, Norway, which is both a major producer of oil and gas, as well as a pioneer for zero-emission cars, comfortably beat the previous record of 64.5 per cent set in 2021.
Comparatively, electric cars made up only 8.6 per cent of new car registrations in the European Union over the first nine months of 2022.
In December alone, electric cars hogged 82.8 per cent of sales as Norwegian households rushed to buy them before a tax change came into force in 2023.
Norway aims for all new cars to be "zero emission" -- in other words, electric and hydrogen -- by 2025.
To promote sales, such cars have benefitted from being tax-free, lower fares for road tolls and public parking.
With such growing popularity, and the loss of income for the state, Norwegian authorities have started to roll back some of the benefits.
As of January 1, the 25 per cent VAT exemption on the purchase of new electric vehicles only applies to the first 500,000 Norwegian kroner (about $50,500) of the price.
One in five cars in Norway is now electric
About one in five cars on Norwegian roads are currently electric.
That share that has doubled in less than three years, the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association said Monday.
"The snowball is rolling faster and faster and a growing number of good electric car models are on Norway's roads", the head of the association, Christina Bu, said on its website.
While it took almost 10 years for the country's electric car fleet to go from zero to 10 per cent of the market -- a level reached in March 2020 -- it took less than three years for the share to then double to 20 per cent, the body said.
A market share of 30 per cent could be reached within two years, it said.
By comparison, 0.64 per cent of cars on France's roads were electric, according to French government figures from January 2021.
Norway, which is paradoxically Western Europe's biggest oil and gas producer, aims for all its new cars to be "zero emission" -- in other words, electric and hydrogen -- by 2025.
Clean cars benefit from several advantages in the Scandinavian country.
Among other things, they are largely tax-free, enjoy lower fares for road tolls and public parking, and can in some cases use public transport lanes.