In a historic first, car buyers in the country of Norway bought more electric vehicles (EVs) in March than traditional cars.
According to the Norwegian Road Federation (OFV), the battery electric vehicle (BEV) market share was 58.4% in March, surpassing 50% for the first time. Part of the reason for the high sales of electric vehicles in March was Tesla selling 5,315 Model 3 units, beating previous numbers recorded by the Nissan Leaf last year.
For the first quarter of 2019, the market share for the BEVs market was higher than ever before at 48.4%.
Recently, Norway made plans to eliminate all emissions from new cars by 2025 and created subsidies for buyers who opt to go electric. In 2018, BEVs made up 31.2% of the Norwegian market and it looks as if 2019 will surpass that, given the sales of the vehicles in the first quarter.
In fact, Norway’s EV Association estimates the BEV market share will maintain about 50% for the entirety of 2019.
“The fresh BEV records are also good news for the used car market, as ever more cars become available at reasonable price levels,” said Christina Bu secretary general of the Norwegian EV Association. “We are now aiming for 1.2 million BEVs on Norwegian roads by 2025, which is a little more than five times today’s number.”
