Did You Know?
In All of 2025, Norway Sold 487 Petrol Cars
95.9% of every new car registered in Norway in 2025 was fully electric. In December alone the figure reached 97.6%.
The remainder is worth listing in full, because it is so small. Out of a record 179,549 new cars registered across the year, there were 2,751 plug-in hybrids, 2,306 petrol hybrids, 1,773 diesels, and 487 pure petrol cars. Total share with no traction battery: 1.3%. Hydrogen cars registered in 2025: zero, down from nine the year before.
The few fossil-fuel vehicles that did sell were mostly specialised — wheelchair-accessible vehicles, police and emergency vehicles, a handful of hybrids and sports cars.
The trajectory is the striking part. A decade before 2020 the electric share was about 1%. It reached 20.8% in 2017, 31.2% in 2018, 42.4% in 2019, 54.3% in 2020, 88.9% in 2024 and 95.9% in 2025. Diesel-only cars fell from a peak of 75.7% of the market in 2011 to 8.6% in 2020. Electric cars now outnumber petrol cars on Norwegian roads.
Outsiders usually explain this as generous subsidies, and Norway's EV association says that is only half of it. As its head, Christina Bu, has put it, people abroad think it is all about tax exemptions, but it is also very much about the whip — internal combustion cars have been taxed steadily out of the market, alongside toll exemptions, free public parking and bus-lane access for electric cars.
The policy started in 1990, in one of the largest oil and gas exporting countries in the world.
The clock: Oslo sits at almost 60° north, which gives it one of the widest seasonal daylight swings of any European capital — from roughly nineteen hours of light at midsummer to under six in December.
This is precisely the situation daylight saving was invented for, and Norway duly changes its clocks twice a year, along with the rest of Europe.
Which produces a quiet comparison. Norway took its new-car market from 1% electric to 96% in about fifteen years, by sustained and unpopular taxation. Over the same period, Europe voted to stop changing its clocks and could not agree on what to do instead.
Sources
- Norwegian Road Federation (OFV) data, 2 January 2026 (95.9% electric share in 2025, 97.6% in December; record 179,549 new cars, 40% increase on 2024)
- Electrek (remaining distribution: 2,306 petrol hybrids, 1,773 diesels, 487 pure petrol; 1.3% battery-free share; zero hydrogen; most fossil vehicles are special purpose)
- European Alternative Fuels Observatory (EAFO) (December 2025 figures; VAT rule effective 1 January 2026)
- Daily Sabah / Reuters (Christina Bu's "whip" statement; 88.9% in 2024)
- Bangkok Post / Reuters archive (54.3% in 2020, 42.4% in 2019, 31.2% in 2018, 20.8% in 2017; diesel decline from 75.7% peak in 2011 to 8.6% in 2020)
- World Resources Institute (policy started 1990)
- Statista (number of electric vehicles exceeds gasoline ones)