The Norwegian car market completely collapsed in January. Last month, only 1,860 new cars were registered, the lowest number since 1962.
Compared to a year earlier, the decrease was ‘only’ 77 percent, but compared to December it is a drop of no less than 95 percent. In that month, 29,479 cars rolled out of the showroom. The reason is the reversal of subsidies.
The decline shows how much electric car sales in many countries are driven by government financial incentives. Norway introduced tax changes on January 1 of this year, ending quite a few financial benefits for electric cars.
One of the new measures is that a tax will be levied on the weight of electric cars. VAT must also be paid again on electric cars with a new price above 500,000 Norwegian kroner (45,000 euros). Since the measures were announced in time, buyers made their move in December, which explains the high sales figures in December.
Model Y, ID.4 and Enyaq most popular
Last year, 174,329 new cars were sold in Norway. More than 79.3 percent of new cars sold were fully electrically powered. Hybrid cars had a share of 14 percent. Only 3.6 percent of new cars had a petrol engine and 3.1 percent were diesel. The most sold models are the Tesla Model Y, Volkswagen ID.4 and Skoda Enyaq.
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