Norway is increasingly electric, but not its tourists

The almost total conversion to electric power is more the result of a change of mentality than government incentives, which have in any case helped

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By: Francesco Stazi

Published by: Brian Potter

Jan 4, 2025 at 4:47am ET

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Electric car sales figures in Norway tell us that the Scandinavian country sells the most battery-powered vehicles in the world. In 2024, 88.9 per cent of the cars sold in Norway were fully electric, compared to 82.4 per cent in 2023, but there is still a small black dot in this 'green' landscape.

We are talking about the percentage of sales to rental companies that are still unable to fully convert to electric, as visitors to Norway are apparently still not entirely comfortable with this type of powertrain, but from Northern Europe they reassure us that it is only a matter of time.

A virtuous mix also with hybrids

If we also consider the sales of plug-in hybrids, the percentage of vehicles with a charging socket rises to 91.6 per cent, with the latter taking a further 2.7 per cent of the market. If we then broaden the focus even further to all 'electrified' vehicles, we discover that 5.3% of the market is accounted for by 'full hybrids'.

This brings the market share of vehicles with an electric drive component to 96.9%. Only 2.3% of the vehicles sold in the country are still powered exclusively by diesel, while 0.8% run only on petrol.

Towards zero emissions

These figures confirm that Norway is broadly on track to meet its target of eliminating sales of internal combustion cars by 2025, a trend that has been increasingly clear in recent years, even as the country began to reduce incentives for the purchase of electric cars. Despite not having an official law banning combustion cars, Norway has therefore made its strategy effective.

High taxes on petrol-powered cars and incentives for electric cars worked so well that, by the time incentives were reduced, buying an electric car had already become the norm and car manufacturers even stopped offering non-electric vehicles, given the now negligible sales volumes.

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Although these numbers relate to the new car market, the uptake of EVs in Norway has been so strong for so long that electric cars now account for a significant percentage of cars on the road. By the end of 2024, this share had risen to 28.6 per cent, surpassing that of petrol-only cars. Diesel-only cars are still the most common type of motorisation on Norwegian roads (just over a third of the total), but this will not be the case for much longer.

The exception of tourism

However, there are still some exceptions. Ulf Tore Hekneby, head of Harald A. Moeller, the largest car importer in Norway told Reuters that:

"the main buyers of internal combustion cars in Norway are rental companies, as many tourists are not familiar with electric vehicles".

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Norwegians, on the other hand, have now made the mental switch to electric, and most combustion cars are only imported to meet the needs of foreigners from countries with low EV penetration. It has also happened in other countries such as the US where Hertz, bought a huge amount of EVs, only to find that some customers found them difficult to use.

The 'fuel' is short-lived in Norway

It won't be long, however, before it will be more complicated for these tourists to fill up a petrol car than to recharge an EV, as petrol stations have been replacing petrol pumps with recharging stations for years, while fuel sales are in sharp decline. Circle K, for example, the largest petrol station chain in Norway, has stated that within three years it will have the same number of recharging stations as fuel pumps.

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