Norway’s gas car sales are crashing to a crawl and rest of the world will follow faster than you’d think

Norway’s internal combustion engine car sales (petrol and diesel) are crashing to now just a handful per month, and the rest of the world will follow faster than you might think.

The country has been leading electric vehicle adoption for years and it aims for all new car sales to be electric by 2025.

In 2020, all-electric cars have hit a record 54% market share of Norway’s total new cars sales in 2020.

Lately, EV market shares have increased not only with more electric cars hitting the market but also because of gasoline and diesel car sales crashing.

Last month, petrol cars had a 4.8% market share and diesel cars had a 4.7% market share, representing fewer than 1,500 vehicle sales in March (via Norway’s Road Traffic Information Council):

That’s less than half the market share that the internal combustion engine vehicles had during the same period last year.

With many new all-electric models hitting the market in the next few years, including higher-volume EVs, Norway is expected to hit its target of electric-only sales by 2025 without any issue.

But Norway is a small and rich country with strong EV incentives, and the auto industry is trying to figure out how soon the rest of the world will follow.

Most industry analysts believe that global EV market share won’t hit more than 30% by 2030.

BNEF, one of the most-followed projections for EV adoption, puts all-electric market shares at 28% in the passenger car segment in 2030.

Electrek’s Take

As most Electrek readers know, I believe the rest of the world will follow a lot quicker than what most analysts are predicting.

I know that most people believe Norway is not a great example and I understand why, but I think there’s still importance in consumer perception.

It’s not just about new EV sales, it’s also about gasoline car sales crashing.

As EV sales are rising and it becomes clear that it’s the future, buyers are more wary about buying new gasoline vehicles, even if they’re not ready to make the jump to electric vehicles just now.

The resale value for internal combustion engine vehicles is going to crash, and that’s going to affect buying habits.

Therefore, I believe that even if the industry will not be ready to produce enough EVs, I think market shares will grow a lot faster than most people anticipate because gasoline vehicle market shares will crash.