There are now more electric cars than gas cars on Norwegian roads

Sometime this month, Norway will have more electric cars on its roads than gasoline-only cars, according to an analysis of Norwegian government data.

Analysis comes courtesy of Bilbransje24, the Norwegian automotive industry publication. It used data from the Norwegian Road Traffic Information Council (Opplysningsrådet y Veitrafikken, OFV).

Norway releases detailed monthly information on vehicle sales in the country, which has been useful for us tracking the EV market in the world's most EV-driven country. It set another world record with 94% EV for the new car market in August.

Norway has long stood out, with the highest level of EV market share of any country and the desire to end the sale of new gas vehicles by 2025, while other countries and regions are focusing on a much weaker target of 2035.

But it was successful basically meet that 2025 goal early, with non-electric vehicles making up only a single-digit percentage of domestic sales by 2021. Some countries even abruptly halted sales of ICE vehicles with only a few days' notice as sales continued to decline.

As with most technologies, the last few percent always struggle, but we think a single-digit drop could be a win (for reference, California's 2035 electric vehicle “ban” still allows up to 20% of vehicle sales to be PHEVs, which have a combustion engine in them).

And the combined effect of years of very high EV sales, and very low gas vehicle sales, means we've seen the installed base of gas vehicles shrink even as the installed base of EVs continues to grow. And now, finally, those lines have been crossed.

There are more electric cars than petrol-only cars on Norwegian roads (as of… today?)

As of the end of last month, there were 751,450 electric vehicles operating in Norway and only 755,244 gasoline vehicles, each making up about 26% of the vehicles on the road.

Given that EVs sell at a rate of about 10,000 vehicles per month, and gasoline-only vehicles sell at a rate of…. zero (okay, maybe a few hundred) per month, that means these lines will cross in the middle of this month. So… almost now.

This does not leave out one type of powertrain, the diesel, which was very popular in Norway in the 2000s and early 2010s. Diesel-powered cars overtook petrol-only cars in late 2014, and have remained the most common vehicles on Norwegian roads ever since. There are over a million diesel cars in Norway (that number will drop below a million by the end of this month), so only diesels still dominate Norwegian roads, ahead of EVs.

But EVs are growing, and growing faster than diesel ever did. And both gasoline-only cars — which EVs have just overtaken — and diesel-only cars are declining in popularity. “Peak diesel” was reached in 2017, although today they make up 35% of Norwegian cars. Peak sales of gasoline vehicles were reached in Norway in 2005.

Each of these numbers leaves out hybrids, which make up a small number, both plug-in and otherwise. There are approximately 208k plug-in hybrids and 156k non-plug-in hybrids on Norwegian roads now. The installed base of plug-in hybrids was greater than that of non-plug-in hybrids back in 2019.

And the installed base of diesel and gasoline vehicles are not driven as often as newer, more efficient EVs, so the different travel distances have had a negative effect on domestic gasoline sales. Last year, Electrek made an analysis of how the sales of Cratering motor fuel in Norway show a death spiral that could run out of oil.

See more: graphs and charts in Bilbransje24 article

Electrek's Take

As usual, Norway is showing the whole world how this should work.

Meanwhile, many countries don't even come close to having one New EV sales eclipse sales of new gas cars, and Norway is already out with more EVs in the street there are gas cars.

For all the complaints and impossible protests, the Nordic countries have left gas behind. They all have high EV penetration, led by Norway, and haven't had the widespread problems that fossil fuel propaganda always tries to convince you that high EV use can lead to.

Perhaps instead of listening to ignorant clowns committed to increasing harm and cost, we should just look at how one of the happiest nations in the world has changed its transportation system for the better, and take a few notes.

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