Electric cars will likely make up 90% of Volkswagen‘s sales in Norway in 2021 and could entirely replace diesel and petrol engines in the Scandinavian country by 2023, the German automaker’s local importer said on Wednesday.
With a 2025 goal of becoming the first nation to put an end to the sale of fossil-fueled cars, oil-producer Norway exempts battery-powered vehicles from taxes added on petrol and diesel engines.
The policy has turned the nation’s auto market into a laboratory for global automakers looking a path to a future without internal combustion engines, vaulting new brands and models to the leading bestseller lists in recent years.
A record of 61.5% of new cars sold in Norway last month were powered by entirely electric engines, registration data revealed, increasing from 42.4% for 2019 as a whole.
The debut last month of Volkswagen’s ID.3 model vaulted it to the top of the Norwegian sales ranking, outselling American electric automaker Tesla’s Model 3 and Chinese automaker Geely’s Polestar 2, according to the Norwegian Road Federation.
In its 2021 fiscal spending strategy on Wednesday, the Norwegian government extended its policy of zero tax on wholly electric cars, providing predictability for automakers.
“This allows us to be confident in saying we can hit 90% electric car sales next year,” said Harald A. Moeller AS, the Norwegian importer of Volkswagen vehicles, including the Audi, Skoda and SEAT brands.
“Customers will have access to an even greater selection of electric cars in most segments in 2021.”
At the start of this year, Harald A. Moeller set a 60% target for electric cars.
