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Market leader - in Norway:
Audi benefited from the boom in electric SUVs with the E-Tron
Photo: FRANCOIS LENOIR / REUTERS
Last year, for the first time, more electric cars were sold in Norway than vehicles with other drives.
In 2020, electric vehicles made up 54.3 percent of all new cars sold in the country - a world record, as the Norwegian Road Transport Association announced on Tuesday.
In the previous year, the E share in new registrations was 42.4 percent.
Most popular were electric models from the Volkswagen Group, which outperformed its US rival Tesla.
Last year, a good 141,000 new cars hit the roads in Norway, 0.7 percent fewer than in the previous year.
Around 76,800 of these were fully electric.
Norway has been promoting the sale of electric cars for a long time and has set itself the goal of no longer allowing combustion engines from 2025.
"Our preliminary forecast is that electric cars will achieve a 65 percent market share in 2021," said Christina Bu of the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association, an e-mobility lobby group.
"If we can do that, the goal of only selling zero-emission cars by 2025 will be within reach."
Norway gives electric car owners many advantages among its five million inhabitants - such as the waiver of import duties and taxes for electric cars.
In addition, they do not pay tolls on motorways and can use the bus lanes in cities.
There are largely no fees for parking in public parking lots for Stromer.
Audi E-Tron new number one, Tesla is falling behind
The reason for the breakthrough of electromobility in the northern European country is therefore a whole range of measures.
Apparently there are no more charging stations alone: The consulting firm Berylls points out that in Germany around nine electric cars have to share a charging station, while in Norway there are 23.
"The network of public charging points is obviously not only thinner than in Germany, but also much more busy," says Berylls car expert Andreas Radics.
"And although there are now waiting times at the charging stations, the e-car boom in Norway continues."
Sales of battery-powered cars accelerated in the last few months of the past year and, according to the Norwegian Road Transport Association, reached the highest level in a single month in December at 66.7 percent.
In 2020, the list of the best-selling cars in Norway was headed by the VW subsidiary Audi with its electric models from the E-Tron series, which had 9227 new registrations.
The VW ID.3, which was only launched on the market in September, was almost on par with the Tesla Model 3 with 7754 units, which, as the clear market leader, was sold more than twice as often in 2019.
Overall, the Tesla brand, which almost exclusively depended on this one model, fell back to sixth place behind Volkswagen, Toyota, Audi, BMW and Volvo.
This year, the US electric car manufacturer plans to launch the SUV model Y on the market.
The first electric SUVs are also being launched from Ford, BMW and Volkswagen.
Some newcomers achieved several thousand new registrations as early as 2020, including the MG ZS SUV from Volkswagen's Chinese partner SAIC, the Mercedes-Benz EQC or the Polestar 2 from Volvo's electrical branch.
ak / Reuters
