VW exits the combustion engine business - in Norway

The Norwegian VW importer Harald A. Møller AS has been importing Volkswagen to Norway since 1948 – everything started with the iconic Beetle. Over the past 75 years, Møller has sold more than 1.1 million VWs in the Scandinavian country, including around 1 million combustion engines. The latter is no longer to be part of the range in the future. As a final farewell to fossil-fueled cars, the last Volkswagen Golf will be ordered by Møller at the end of the year. He will focus exclusively on electrified vehicles, although he did not state whether the end of combustion engines also includes plug-in and mild hybrids with corresponding engines.

Double Anniversary

On the 75th company anniversary on October 21, the 10th anniversary of the initial registration of a fully electric model from Volkswagen in Norway in 2013 was also celebrated.

It may seem strange to mark the milestone by removing iconic models from our portfolio. But this has been an ambitious and important initiative over time. The goal was to drive change, which we believe is critical. (Ulf Tore Hekneby, CEO of Volkswagen Importer Harald A. Møller AS)

And he added:

The development of electric cars has so far been a great success. This is probably due to both the desire of Norwegians for climate-friendly solutions and a wide range of electric cars in all segments, as well as the willingness of politicians to set good incentives. For the development to continue in the right direction, we must ensure that these incentives are not diluted too quickly.

Harald A. Møller AS therefore focuses on electric cars of the ID. family. Most recently, the importer added the ID. 7 to the program, which Hekneby said “will elegantly and electrically replace the popular Passat.”

We encourage everyone to consider an electric car for their next car purchase. Switching to an electric car is a crucial step in reducing one’s individual CO₂ footprint and overall an important contribution to combating climate change.

E-Cars Dominate

For 2023, the Norwegian Automotive Association OFV predicts a registration rate of electrified cars of around 90% – battery-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. Currently, the share of pure electric cars is around 82%. Petrol cars accounted for only about 1.5% of the total market over the course of the year, diesel cars 2.3%, together less than 4%. And this despite the fact that, beginning of the year, Norway ended the VAT exemption for electric cars and introduced an additional weight-based tax.

TheVW ID.4 was the second most popular car in Norway in the first three quarters of 2023 with 5,832 new registrations, behind the undisputed leader Tesla Model Y (19,575).TheID.3 (2,615) ranked eighth. The MEB sister models Skoda Enyaq (4,362) in third and Audi Q4 e-tron (2,145) in tenth also made it into the top ten.