Norway became the world's first country where electric cars accounted for more than 50 percent of new vehicle registrations in 2020, according to an industry group.
ADVERTISEMENTNorway became the first country in the world where electric car sales exceeded 50% of all new vehicle registrations in 2020, a specialised industry group has said.
Figures published by the Road Traffic Information Council (OFV) found that electric vehicles had a market share of 54.3 percent last year in Norway. That was also an increase of a 42.4 percent share of sales in 2019.
Among the best-selling models in the Nordic country in 2020 were fully electric vehicles such as the Audi e-tron, the Tesla Model 3, and the Volkswagen ID.3.
The Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association said that Norway was the first country to break the overall 50 per cent threshold, according to AFP.
A total of 76,789 electric vehicles were sold in 2020, the report added, compared to 12,162 diesel (9% of all new registrations) and 11,305 petrol cars (8%). Plug-in hybrids achieved a market share of around 20 percent.
In December, electric car sales also set a monthly record in Norway with 66.7 percent following the arrival of new models, the OFV said.
Meanwhile all car sales in the country were down by just 0.7 percent in 2019, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
Norway is the largest producer of hydrocarbons in Western Europe and has also become a pioneer in electric mobility thanks to an extremely advantageous fiscal policy.
Unlike very heavily taxed diesel or petrol cars, green vehicles are notably exempt from almost all taxes, which makes them competitive to purchase.
Norway's government has also pushed manufacturers towards electric by imposing strict pollution limits and stated that all new cars sold by 2025 must be emission-free.