Norway: EV sales remain at high level

In August, 13,482 new electric cars hit Norwegian roads. The high level of electrification continues – 97 per cent of all new cars were fully electric. Among the models, one German-built vehicle dominates.

EV market shares above 90 per cent have long been the rule in Norway, rather than the exception. Still, the 97 per cent share in August and 94.5 per cent so far this year remain remarkable.

“We have never seen such a high overall share of electric cars at the beginning of September, even though there have been individual months with a higher share,” said Øyvind Solberg Thorsen, Director of the Norwegian Road Traffic Information Council (OFV). “Of the almost 14,000 new passenger cars in August, fewer than 500 were petrol or diesel models.”

The shift in demand is not only evident within the Norwegian market across different powertrains. A total of 13,915 new registrations in August represented a 25.2 per cent increase compared to August 2024, with nearly all of them electric. And so far this year, registrations have reached 98,996 units, 25.6 per cent more than in the first eight months of 2024 – and 19 out of 20 of these were fully electric.

The statistics also reveal another market development: according to OFV, the share of privately leased new cars has been falling this year. In January, 20 per cent of newly registered private cars were leased, but now it is only 16 per cent.

“Some car dealers are offering promotions with very low interest rates, in some cases even zero per cent over longer periods. Many importers have in effect taken advantage of the central bank’s rate cuts, making it easier and cheaper for people to buy a car outright than to lease one,” said Solberg Thorsen.

Another factor is that many customers likely leased their first EV to test it for a limited period and return it without residual value risk. But they found that an EV works in their everyday life, and so the next vehicle is not leased but bought.

A quick look at other powertrains: plug-in petrol hybrids are still the second largest category after battery-electric cars, but with 188 new registrations and a 1.4 per cent market share, they fell below the year-to-date average of 2.1 per cent. Pure diesels also lost ground slightly (138 units and a 1.0 per cent share vs. 1.2 per cent YTD), while petrol hybrids dropped significantly: with only 52 new registrations, their share shrank to 0.4 per cent – lower still were pure petrol cars (32 vehicles / 0.2 per cent) and diesel plug-in hybrids (23 vehicles / 0.2 per cent).

Among the most popular models, there was little change: the Tesla Model Y continues to top the ranking ahead of a series of MEB models. The mid-size SUV, built in Germany, recorded 2,456 new registrations in Norway in August – accounting for 17.7 per cent of the total. While other mid-size SUVs on the MEB platform (and at times the Toyota bZ4X) often reached four-digit sales, in August only the Model Y achieved this.

The VW ID.4 in second place recorded only 656 new registrations, followed – as an exception – by the otherwise less in-demand Tesla Model 3 with 552 units. The next positions again went to the Volkswagen Group: the Skoda Enyaq (501), the VW ID.3 (482), the ID.7 (412) and the Skoda Elroq (401). With the Volvo EX30 (376), BMW iX1 (364) and BYD Sealion 07 (348), a total of seven places in the top ten went to compact or mid-size electric SUVs.

Thanks to the success of the Model Y, Tesla also topped the manufacturer ranking with 3,014 vehicles. VW followed with 1,782 new registrations across several strong-selling series. Volvo (870) came next, ahead of the German premium brands BMW (825), Audi (615) and Mercedes-Benz (587).

ofv.no (press release), ofv.no (August resgistrations), ofv.no (models)

This article was first published by Sebastian Schaal for electrive’s German edition.