Close to Half of All Cars Sold in Norway so Far This Year Are Electric

For the first six months of the year half of all cars sold in Norway were electric.
Donna Fuscaldo
Electric vehicle charging upspyderskidoo/iStock

Norway may be an oil producing country, but that doesn't mean its citizens aren't falling in love with electric cars. 

Of the new cars sold in the country for the first six months of 2019, nearly half were electric vehicles. Based on data released by the Norwegian Road Federation,  48.4% of the vehicles sold in the first half were powered by a completely electric engine. That's an increase from 31.2% for all of 2018. 

RELATED: 6 INTERESTING STATISTICS ABOUT ELECTRIC VEHICLES

With the increase in electric vehicle sales, Norway has become a leader across the globe.  With a goal to curb sales of diesel and petrol engines by 2025, Norway has put policies in place that reward vehicles that don't use greenhouse emitting fuel to power vehicles. The government gives exemptions to battery-driven cars so they don't have to pay the heavy taxes that vehicles powered by fossil fuels do.  

According to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), Norway electric car market share stood at 39% in 2017, while Iceland was in second place with 12% share and Sweden rounded out the top three with 6% share.

Tesla Benefits from Norway Actions  

 The move on the part of Norway to incentivize the use of electric vehicles bodes well for the likes of Tesla, which earlier this week was able to blow past Wall Street expectations in terms of the number of Model 3 sedans delivered in the June ending the second quarter. Tesla said it sold 3,755 vehicles in Norway alone during the second quarter, accounting for 24.5% of the electric cars sold in the country during the quarter. It also emerged as the leading electric car brand for the first half of 2019. 

Tesla was able to deliver a total of 95,200 vehicles in the second quarter, which was way higher than the 88,000 deliveries Wall Street was looking for. When announcing the results Tesla said: "Orders generated during the quarter exceeded our deliveries, thus we are entering Q3 with an increase in our order backlog. We believe we are well positioned to continue growing total production and deliveries in Q3."

Nissan, Hyuandi, and BMW are also benefiting. They make electric cars that rely fully on electric engines. Some of their rivals are churning out hybrids, that use electric motors but also have a fossil fuel powered engine as a backup. 

Add Interesting Engineering to your Google News feed.
Add Interesting Engineering to your Google News feed.
message circleSHOW COMMENT (1)chevron
Job Board