Norway’s full-year EV sales are in, and once again the country has broken its own record for EV adoption. In 2024, 88.9% of cars sold in Norway were all-electric, up from 82.4% in 2023.
The main holdout? Rental car companies, who service tourists who aren’t familiar with EVs.
In addition, plug-in hybrid sales tipped that number up to 91.6% of vehicles having a plug, as PHEVs captured an additional 2.7% of the market.
If we expand the definition to “electrified” vehicles, 5.3% of the market were conventional hybrids, bringing the total number of vehicles with an electric motor up to 96.9%. Only 2.3% of vehicles were diesel-only, and 0.8% of vehicles were petrol only.
Other countries that have reduced EV incentives have seen a drop in EV sales – like Germany, which has caused the European market to be the only global market to experience a drop in EV sales in the last year, as they rise everywhere else around the globe. But in Norway, EVs have continued to rise regardless.
While the country doesn’t have an official gas car ban on the books, the plan of high taxes on gasoline vehicles and perks for EVs had already worked out by the time those incentives were reduced, and it had already become normal to purchase an electric car rather than a gas car. Car companies even abruptly stopped offering non-EVs, realizing that the minuscule about of sales weren’t worth the bother.
While these numbers are all about the new car market, Norway’s EV market has been so strong for so long that now electric cars are starting to make up a significant percentage of cars on the road. At the end of 2024, that number now stands at 28.6% – not yet a majority, but it is more than the number of gas-only cars on the road. Diesel-only cars still outnumber EVs as the most common powertrain on Norway’s roads (at a bit over a third of cars on the road), but not for long.
But there are some holdouts, according to Ulf Tore Hekneby, who runs Harald A Moeller, Norway’s bigger car importer. Reuters quoted Hekneby as saying “the main buyers of ICE (internal combustion engine) cars in Norway are rental companies because many tourists are not familiar with EVs.”
So, native Norwegians have made the mental switch to electric, with the biggest share of ICE cars only being imported to serve foreigners from countries with comparatively low EV sales (like America, with its pathetic ~9% EV market share in 2024).
But it may not be long until those tourists have a harder time fueling a gas car than an EV, because for years now, gas stations have been replacing gas pumps with chargers and motor fuel sales have been dropping. Circle K, the largest gas station chain in Norway, says that it will have as many chargers as fuel pumps within three years.
Electrek’s Take
Norway’s EV adoption timeline has almost perfectly tracked the standard “S-curve” of technology adoption, accelerating over time until it reaches high levels, then flattening out for the last few percent of holdouts. We’re seeing that number now, where while Norway has basically hit its plan to eliminate gas car sales by 2025, there are likely to be a few here and there for various reasons.
This is why, for example, California’s much-vaunted “2035 gas car ban” (which, frankly, should be sooner) doesn’t actually ban all vehicles with a gasoline engine in them – it will allow for up to ~20% plug-in hybrids, assuming those PHEVs meet certain requirements.
However, most countries aren’t even close to havingnew EV sales eclipse new gas car sales, and Norway is already out here with over 90% of vehicles having a battery and more full EVs on the road than gas cars.
For all the complaints and protestations of impossibility that we keep hearing in the US, the Nordic countries have by and large left gas behind. All have high EV penetration, led by Norway, and there have not been any of the widespread problems that fossil fuel propaganda constantly tries to convince you that high EV use would lead to. The grid is fine, the cars work in the cold (even in the Northernmost human settlement on the planet), and everyone is happier with quieter roads and cleaner air.
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In a joint statement, French and German economists have called on governments to adopt “a common approach” to decarbonize European trucking fleets – and they’re calling for a focus on fully electric trucks, not hydrogen.
France and Germany are the two largest economies in the EU, and they share similar challenges when it comes to freight decarbonization. The two countries also share a border, and the traffic between the two nations generates major cross-border flows that create common externalities between the two countries.
And for once, it seems like rail isn’t a viable option:
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While rail remains competitive mainly for heavy, homogeneous goods over long distances. Most freight in Europe is indeed transported over distances of less than 200 km and involves consignment weights of up to 30 tonnes (GCEE, 2024) In most such cases, transportation by rail instead of truck is not possible or not competitive. Moreover, taking into account the goods currently transported in intermodal transport units over distances of more than 300 km, the modal shift potential from road to rail would be only 6% in Germany and less than 2% in France.
That leaves trucks – and, while numerous government incentives currently exist to promote the parallel development of both hydrogen and battery electric vehicle infrastructures, the study is clear in picking a winner.
“Policies should focus on battery-electric trucks (BET) as these represent the most mature and market-ready technology for road freight transport,” reads the the FGCEE statement. “Hence, to ramp-up usage of BET public funding should be used to accelerate the roll-out of fast-charging networks along major corridors and in private depots.”
The appeal was signed by the co-chair of the advisory body on the German side is the chairwoman of the German Council of Economic Experts, Monika Schnitzer. Camille Landais co-chairs the French side. On the German side, the appeal was signed by four of the five experts; Nuremberg-based energy economist Veronika Grimm (who also sits on the National Hydrogen Council, which is committed to promoting H2 trucks and filling stations) did not sign.
With companies like Volvo and Renault and now Mercedes racking up millions of miles on their respective battery electric semi truck fleets, it’s no longer even close. EV is the way.
On today’s tariff-tastic episode of Quick Charge, we’ve got tariffs! Big ones, small ones, crazy ones, and fake ones – but whether or not you agree with the Trump tariffs coming into effect tomorrow, one thing is absolutely certain: they are going to change the price you pay for your next car … and that price won’t be going down!
Everyone’s got questions about what these tariffs are going to mean for their next car buying experience, but this is a bigger question, since nearly every industry in the US uses cars and trucks to move their people and products – and when their costs go up, so do yours.
New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.
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GE Vernova has produced over half the turbines needed for SunZia Wind, which will be the largest wind farm in the Western Hemisphere when it comes online in 2026.
GE Vernova has manufactured enough turbines at its Pensacola, Florida, factory to supply over 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of the turbines needed for the $5 billion, 2.4 GW SunZia Wind, a project milestone. The wind farm will be sited in Lincoln, Torrance, and San Miguel counties in New Mexico.
At a ribbon-cutting event for Pensacola’s new customer experience center, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik noted that since 2023, the company has invested around $70 million in the Pensacola factory.
The Pensacola investments are part of the announcement GE Vernova made in January that it will invest nearly $600 million in its US factories and facilities over the next two years to help meet the surging electricity demands globally. GE Vernova says it’s expecting its investments to create more than 1,500 new US jobs.
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Vic Abate, CEO of GE Vernova Wind, said, “Our dedicated employees in Pensacola are working to address increasing energy demands for the US. The workhorse turbines manufactured at this world-class factory are engineered for reliability and scalability, ensuring our customers can meet growing energy demand.”
SunZia Wind and Transmission will create US history’s largest clean energy infrastructure project.
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