The Majority Of New Cars Sold In Norway Are Now Electrified

While proposals from governments around the world to ban the sale of purely petrol-powered cars by certain dates look in many cases unrealistic, one country might actually hit its target. We’re talking about Norway, where the intention is for all cars sold from 2025 onwards to be zero-emissions. In 2017, the nation passed an important milestone: hybrids and full electric vehicles accounted for the majority of new car registrations.

Well, just: they accounted for 52 per cent of sales, but that’s a huge increase on 2016, when purely diesel or petrol-powered cars still made up 60 per cent of registrations.

It’s thanks in no small part to wide-ranging electric car incentives from the Norwegian government, including tax exemptions, free parking, free road tolls and free use of ferries. The country has also heavily invested in charging infrastructure, making hybrid and EV ownership much less of a hassle.

It’s also worth pointing out that the majority of electricity in the country is generated from hydropower, making the environmental benefits of running an EV much greater.

Of course, Norway can afford to do all this - its sovereign wealth fund of $1 trillion is the largest in the world, after all. In other words, it’s not a model other nations can easily follow.

Source: Reuters