Tesla Record Pushes Norway’s Account of Electric Car Sales to 42%

The share of electric cars for new registrations in Norway increased to a record in the last year, helped by Tesla Inc.’s best year ever in this country.

Battery electric cars represented 42% of new car sales in Norway in 2019, increasing from 31% in 2018, the Norwegian Road Federation stated on Friday. Tesla sold a record of 18,798 cars, led by the introduction of its new Model 3 in the first half of the year.

Norway is currently the world’s largest user of electric cars per inhabitant, much because of generous incentives such as tax exemptions. Norway — also western Europe’s biggest oil and gas producer — has a target of zero-emission cars comprising all new sales by 2025.

Volkswagen continues to be the best-selling brand of last year but edged Tesla by only about 150 cars, Oyvind Solberg Thorsen, the head of the Road Federation, stated in a webcast presentation. Both brands represented about 13% of the total new-car sales of 142,381.

The share of EVs could increase to 50% in 2020, Solberg Thorsen stated during the presentation

Norway was Tesla’s third-biggest market by sales in the first nine months of 2019, according to Tesla’s third-quarter report. Tesla’s Model 3 was by far the best-selling model in Norway in 2019 with 15,683 cars, taking over the top position from Nissan’s Leaf.