Electric cars likely to overtake petrol ones in this country by end-2024

The number of battery-powered pure electric cars on Norway's roads is on track to overtake petrol cars by the end of this year or in early 2025, claims a Reuters report. This will be the first for any country in the world, claims the report. The estimate comes at a time when in January this year, nine out of every 10 passenger vehicles sold in Norway were pure electric. Also, electric cars currently account for about a quarter of the total passenger vehicle fleet in the country.

Norway has been one of the early adopters of electric cars at a mass scale. The report states that this significant shift towards electric mobility has been driven by generous incentives, partly thanks to Norway's huge oil and gas wealth, which eventually propelled the growth of demand and sales of electric cars there, as the BEVs became more affordable in the North European country. However, Norway's transition has not come cheap, with the country exempting BEVs from taxes imposed on cars with internal combustion engines and investing in public BEV chargers. This led to a surge in the popularity of BEVs, leading to a decline in demand for both petrol and diesel cars. Besides that, as part of its climate goal, Norway has stated that it aims to end the sales of new petrol and diesel cars in 2025.

The report quoted the Norwegian Public Roads Administration stating that electric vehicles accounted for 24.3 per cent of the country's 29 lakh cars as of 15th March this year, as compared to 26.9 per cent for petrol vehicles.

Interestingly, the projection of EVs overtaking petrol cars in Norway by the end of 2024 or in early 2025 comes amid the electric vehicles' share of total sales in the country hit a record 92.1 per cent in January, as Norwegian Road Federation (OFV) revealed. The report estimated that in 2024, the new electric vehicle sales in the country would top 76,000 units. Also, the number of electric cars in the country is estimated to exceed the combined figures of petrol and diesel cars in Norway by 2029. However, for that to happen, the country will need to reach the goal that 100 per cent of new car sales will be zero-emission ones in 2025.