In Norway, electric vehicles (EVs) now outnumber gas-powered vehicles, according to latest vehicle registration data from the Norwegian Road Federation released on Tuesday.
Norway, a major oil exporter globally, now has 754,303 registered EVs, slightly more than 753,905 of gas vehicles. The Scandinavian country has 2.8 million registered passenger cars, including diesel vehicles.
The director of the Norwegian Road Federation, known as OFV, Oyvind Solberg Thorsen, called the milestone “historic” and said the ongoing electrification of cars is at a “high pace” and the country is closer to becoming the first in the world to have the majority of cars be EVs.
The sales of EVs in the country of 5.5 million people have been accelerated with government incentives and tax breaks. The tax incentives are mostly from the money the country makes exporting oil and gas. It is also one of the wealthiest nations and among the top oil and gas producers in Western Europe.
There were 14 million new registered electric cars globally last year, according to the International Energy Agency. EVs accounted for approximately 18 percent of all cars in 2023, an uptick from 14 percent in 2022. They made up only 2 percent in 2018.
Nearly 95 percent of global EV sales took place in three market areas: Europe, the U.S. and China, where new car registrations got to around 8.1 million in 2023.
EV registrations reached 1.4 million in the U.S. last year, an approximately 40 percent jump from 2022. In Europe last year, the number of registered electric vehicles reached 3.2 million, a 20 percent bump compared to 2022.
