Norway creates world record for selling more electric vehicles than petrol, diesel cars

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In Norway, almost 60 per cent of all new cars sold in March were fully electric, the Norwegian Road Federation has stated. This created a world record for selling more electric vehicles than petrol or diesel cars in the country.

The Norwegian government exempted electric engines from the taxes which are imposed on diesel and petrol cars. This boosted the sales of companies like Tesla and Nissan, with its Leaf model, while hurting sales of Toyota, Daimler and others.

Nissan managed to get the highest selling car in Norway last year, with the Leaf EV bagging maximum sales. However, Tesla’s Model 3 bagged the title in March this year. In total, Tesla sold 5,822 cars including the Model 3, Model S and Model X.

As a result of these increased sales, the American carmaker hired more than 360 people in Norway to increase its staff for servicing and repairs.

The sales figures consolidate Norway’s global lead in electric car sales per capita, a part of an attempt by Western Europe’s biggest producer of oil and gas to transform to a greener economy. The International Energy Agency (IEA), which includes plug-in hybrids when calculating electric car sales, measured Norway’s share of such cars at 39 per cent in 2017, far ahead of second-placed Iceland on 12 per cent and Sweden on 6 per cent.

(With inputs from Reuters)