Norway: More Electric Cars than Gasoline Cars in the Fleet

Norway continues its shift to electromobility: In August 2024, 94.3 percent of new registrations were electric cars – a new record! But for quite some time now, electric cars have accounted for (far) more than half of all newly registered cars there every month. Especially bitter is the comparison to Germany, where the sales of electric mobility in the first eight months of 2024 dropped to 12.7 percent.

As more and more electric cars replace gasoline cars, September 16, 2024, may go down in history as the day when, for the first time, more electric cars than gasoline-powered models were registered. According to official data from the Norwegian Road Traffic Information Council (OFV), there were 754,303 electric cars compared to 753,905 gasoline cars on this reference date. However, the OFV does not take hybrids into account – otherwise, electric cars would not have overtaken gasoline cars yet. Nevertheless, OFV Director Øyvind Solberg Thorsen is pleased:

“This is historic. A milestone that few would have expected ten years ago. The electrification of the passenger car fleet is progressing at a high pace, and Norway is making great strides towards becoming the first country in the world with a passenger car fleet dominated by electric cars.”

But until electric vehicles generally overtake combustion engines in Norway, it will still take some time, as diesel dominates: This is also due to the fact that many vans and the significantly more frequently sold pickups and light commercial vehicles in Norway are still often sold with diesel engines, especially when heavy loads need to be towed. There are still almost a million registered diesel vehicles in Norway - the number one drive type.

Diesel still leads - this could change from 2026

According to OFV, this number is also declining, but with recently just over 10,000 new registrations per month, it will probably take another two years before electric cars in the stock also overtake diesel cars. Especially since electric vans and pickups are only slowly beginning to conquer the roads and are still not available from many manufacturers.

Interestingly, the sell-off and probably also the export of combustion engines is significant: In the last 20 years, over a million gasoline vehicles have disappeared from the Norwegian vehicle fleet and have mostly been replaced by electric cars. The OFV expects that this trend will likely continue with diesel vehicles as well.

However, in Norway, there is also a lack of affordable electric vehicles for low-income households. These households traditionally buy used rather than new cars – and used electric cars are still rare. Meanwhile, many Central European dealers have now discovered Norway as a used car market for their vehicles, while Norwegian combustion engines tend to flow to Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, a study shows that electric cars in Norway are still mostly driven by wealthier segments of the population.