The Norwegian car market in January 2022 saw more sales of electric vehicles and less sales of petrol cars, diesel cars and hybrid electric vehicles, OFV reported in its recent analysis of Norwegian car sales in January. Clean Technica also published an original report and graphics on these results.
A total of 7,957 new passenger cars have been registered in Norway. Although this is 2,344 less than January 2021, the lowest enrollment total for January was in 2009. Also keep in mind that the first quarter of the year is usually the lowest in terms of sales.
What is most remarkable is that of the 7,957 new passenger car sales, 6,660 of them were zero-emission vehicles. This represents a 21.9% increase from January 2021. There were a total of 1,495 new vans, of which 371 were new zero-emission vans in Classes 1 and 2.
?? Plug-in hybrid share fell from 27.9% in 1/21 to just 6.8% in 1/22 after ?? PHEV tax increase in January to better reflect PHEV emissions
PHEV share may recover a bit later in the year, but their days are numbered, with the market rapidly approaching 100% fill #VE pic.twitter.com/LUCONv8as9
— Not_an_Analyst (@facts_tesla) February 1, 2022
In total, there were only 175 gasoline car sales in Norway in January, 212 diesel car sales, 910 hybrid vehicle sales and 6,660 battery electric vehicle sales. OFV (Board of traffic information) reported that in January, 19 of the top 20 new car sales were electric. The article also referred to the aforementioned decrease in total sales in January 2022 compared to January 2021, noting that electric cars were the exception in this case.
The article also noted that of all new passenger cars so far in 2022, 6.8% are plug-in hybrids. The year is still young and this number could increase, but it might not increase much if BEVs continue to grow.
OFV’s Øyvind Solberg Thorsen pointed out that the only vehicle in the top 20 that is not an electric car is the Toyota RAV4. The OFV also noted that new car registrations continue to reflect how different Norway is to the rest of the world in the context of electric cars. Although more and more countries are seeing an increase in electric vehicle sales, only Norway can point to such a distribution of makes and models in the top 20 within a month. Thorsen added that the six best-selling vehicles did not exist in Norway at this time last year.
This shows that Norwegian new car buyers buy the very latest cars in the same way that many do with mobile phones. He added that the way we buy a new car is about to change dramatically with the ability to order and buy online before a new car is picked up from a dealership. Thorsen noted that a lot of people aren’t trying out the new car like they used to.