Third largest car sales year in history

CarCar. Photo.pixabay.com

There were 158,650 new passenger cars registered in Norway last year, making 2017 the third largest sales year in history.

 

Only 1986 and 1985 saw higher car sales in Norway, with 167,352, and 159,079 sales of new passenger cars respectively. The increase in car sales in 2017was 2.6% higher than 2016.

Of the cars that were sold last year, 33,080 were zero-emission cars, corresponding to a 20.9% share.

The sale of diesel cars continued to fall.

‘The trend is clear. People in Norway now choose electric cars, hybrids and petrol cars before diesel. In 2017, 23.1% of all newly registered passenger cars
had diesel engines, while the figure for 2016 was 30.8%,’ said Øyvind Solberg Thorsen, Director of the Road Traffic Advisory Board (OFV).

He emphasised that as late as 2012, diesel cars represented more than 64%, so the trend towards more environmentally friendly fuels has moved quickly.

‘8,559 zero emission cars were used in 2017, many of them as good as brand new. This means that the Norwegian passenger car stock had increased by more than 41,000 zero-emission cars by 2017’, he said.

He believes the share of zero-emission cars will be 25% of new sales this year.

Of a total of approximately 2.7 million Norwegian passenger cars, purely electric cars constitute just over 5%, almost 150,000.

By 2017, hybrid cars had 31.3% of market share. In 2016, their market share was 24.5%.

The ten best-selling passenger cars in Norway in 2017was dominated by cars that run on alternative fuels, such as electric cars, rechargeable hybrids, or hybrids.

1. Volkswagen Golf (all fuels)

2. BMW i3 (electric and rechargeable hybrid)

3. Toyota RAV4 (hybrid and petrol)

4. Tesla Model X (electric)

5. Volkswagen Passat (rechargeable hybrid, diesel, petrol)

6. Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV (rechargeable hybrid, diesel, petrol)

7. Toyota Yaris (hybrid and petrol)

8. Tesla Model S (electric)

9. Skoda Octavia (diesel, petrol and rechargeable hybrid)

10. Toyota C-HR (hybrid and petrol)

 

© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today