EVs Now Outnumber Gas Cars in Norway, But Oil is Still King

Norway now has more electric cars on the road than gas-powered, according to data from the Norwegian Road Traffic Information Council.

This month, the country had 754,303 electric car registrations and 753,905 for gas (petrol) cars. Norway also has around 210,000 plug-in hybrids and 156,000 hybrids.

"This is historic...a milestone few saw coming ten years ago," says director Øyvind Solberg Thorsen, as translated by Google. "The electrification of the passenger car fleet is keeping a high pace, and Norway is moving rapidly towards becoming the first country in the world with a passenger car fleet dominated by electric cars."

Thorsen attributes the shift to old gas cars being taken off the road and replaced with electric ones, many of which can be purchased tax incentives.

Norway funds its EV tax breaks in part with money from its booming oil and gas businesses, The Washington Post reports. Oil has a "growing significance" on the country's GDP and accounts for 52% of its exports, according to the International Trade Administration. Norway is also the 4th largest exporter of natural gas globally.

The US also offers up to $7,500 in federal tax incentives, on top of state-specific incentives, for a selection of USA-made electric vehicles. The list of models includes some of the most popular ones, such as the Tesla Model Y and Honda Prologue. EVs made up 8.5% of registrations in the US in July, up from 7.6% a year ago, according to CBT News.

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Despite Norway's growing EV fleet, diesel cars remain the number one fuel type in the country, at 999,715 registrations. Thorsen predicts electric cars in Norway will outnumber diesel by 2026 as they, too, are steadily replaced. He says the number of diesel vehicles grew dramatically between 2007 to 2017, when "favorable tax changes" caused "a tremendous speed in the growth of diesel cars." The number of diesel registrations has steadily dropped since reversing those policies and has remained under one million since 2017.

See Norway's full September registration data in the table below. "Bensin" translates to "gas," and "elektrisitet" means "electric."

About Emily Dreibelbis

Senior Reporter

I'm the expert at PCMag for all things electric vehicles and AI. I've written hundreds of articles on these topics, including product reviews, daily news, CEO interviews, and deeply reported features. I also cover other topics within the tech industry, keeping a pulse on what technologies are coming down the pipe that could shape how we live and work.

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