Kathmandu. In Norway, there are more than 96 percent of new cars registered in January, which were electric. It was close to the Scandinavian country’s goal of selling only zero-emission vehicles as of this year.

According to the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (OFV), electric vehicles accounted for 95.8 percent of new cars registered last month.

Including rechargeable hybrid models, the share of electric cars rose to 96.8 percent. A total of 9,343 new cars were sold in January, of which 8,954 were all-electric.

“We’ve never seen this before… If the rest of the year continues like this, we will very soon be close to the 2025 goal,” OFV director Oyvind Solberg Thorsen said in a statement.

“But if we want to cross the finish line with 100 percent electric cars, it will be necessary to maintain the incentives that make it profitable to choose an electric car over other other models,” he added.

Of the 50 most-sold models, only two were non-electric, the first of which came in 33rd place. In Norway, electric cars are exempt from many taxes, making them competitive against heavily taxed internal combustion cars.

They have also benefitted from toll exemptions, free parking in public car parks, and the use of public transport traffic lanes. While some tax breaks and incentives have been rolled back over the years, electric cars have become commonplace.

In January, diesel cars accounted for just 1.5 percent of new cars registered in the country, and petrol cars just 0.4 percent, the OFV said. The most sold model was the Toyota bZ4X, ahead of the Volkswagen ID.4 and the Nissan Ariya.

By comparison, the share of electric cars in Europe was just 13.6 percent in the full-year 2024, a decline for the first time since 2020, according to the car-making lobby ACEA. The share for the month of December alone was 15.9 percent, it said.(AFP)