Norway is the greatest electric vehicle market in the world, and their exposure to electric vehicles has not turned them off. Electric vehicle sales have been soaring. You have seen peoples’ exposure to new things that aren’t as good as they were hyped to be. Fortunately, electric vehicles often turn out better than people expect them to be.
Image obtained with thanks from Nissan.
There is a significant mount of anti-EV propaganda in circulation, and it has resulted in the misconceptions that ‘electric cars are slow’, ‘electric cars can’t go far enough’, ‘electric cars are too expensive’. While the third is true, and the second was blown out of proportion, as most people drive far shorter distances than the average electric vehicle’s range, these claims are discouraging EV purchases.
As Nissan said, one solution is to: ‘Get butts in seats’, and therefore prove that it is not that difficult to become accustomed to electric vehicles. I have seen a few cases in which people test drove electric cars, and all of them were actually positively surprised. They were better than they expected (especially their performance).
In 2012, there were 3,950 electric vehicle registrations in Norway. In order of sales, those were the:
- Nissan Leaf;
- Mitsubishi i-MiEV;
- Citroen C-Zero;
- Peugeot iOn;
- Other;
In 2013, there were 7,882. They were the:
- Nissan Leaf;
- Tesla Model S;
- VW e-up!;
- Mitsubishi i-MIEV, C-Zero, and iOn;
- Other;
“And finally, we also should include used imported electric cars because in Norway this is a significant source of EVs. A total of 2,086 units were bought this way, which accounted for ~25% of new car sales. This is also several times more than the 309 in 2012. From where does Norway draws all these 2,086 cars?”
Combined, everything adds up to 10,143 EV registrations in 2013, and 4,318 of them in 2012. Norway now has 20,000 electric vehicles on its roads, and at the end of 2014, this figure may even exceed 40,000.
The registration of light electric delivery vehicles is tallied separately, and was 340 in 2013. There were only 59 in 2013.
If you want to keep up with all of this website’s posts, subscribe by entering your e-mail address in the field near the top right section of the screen.
Source: InsideEVs.
