As reported in The Driven last week, only 12 petrol vehicles were sold in Norway in February as the share of full battery EVs reached 98 per cent. Back in August 2024, I wrote an article about how only 45 petrol vehicles were sold in July that year and discussed which makes and models they were.
I thought it might be time to dive in again and see what the residual ICE vehicles look like now.
There is a common perception that residual petrol car sales will be for unusual vehicles where EV models don’t exist or for strange use cases. However, this doesn’t appear to be the case. Brand loyalty or buyer conservatism seem to be more plausible explanations.
Opplysningsrådet for Veitrafikken (OFV), the Norwegian road traffic information council, helpfully provided provided me with the model breakdowns (if you’ll pardon the pun) for sales in February:
12 petrol vehicles
20 plugless hybrid vehicles; and
40 plug-in hybrid vehicles
In this short article, I’ll cover the models in each category.
ICE makes and models
The following table lists the volumes for each of the eight ICE models sold in February. The Mazda CX-30 made up one quarter of the ICE sales.
The rest were mainly high end or high performance cars with strong brand loyalty being a possible explanation. There’s certainly no need to buy an ICE car these days for cachet or performance.
Interestingly, the Suzuki Ignis and Swift that featured in August 2024 are no longer in this list.
Make
Model
Volume
TOTAL
12
Mazda
CX-30
3
BMW
X1
2
Land Rover
Range Rover
2
BMW
M2 CS
1
BMW
X7
1
Land Rover
Range Rover Sport
1
MINI
Cooper
1
Porsche
911
1
Hybrid ICE makes and models
Next, we have the conventional “plugless” hybrids. Interestingly, only two brands are represented here: Toyota and Porsche.
Three quarters of these vehicles are Toyota Yaris hybrids, a car for which it could be said that there have previously been limited EV alternatives – but not any more. Remember that price can’t really be a factor because Norway will take half of your worldly possessions to buy an ICE vehicle.
Make
Model
Volume
TOTAL
20
Toyota
Yaris
15
Porsche
911
3
Porsche
911 Turbo
1
Toyota
Yaris Cross
1
Plug-in hybrid makes and models
Finally, we have the PHEVs. PHEV sales in Norway have been in decline for several years as a result of tax increases on PHEVs. PHEVs nevertheless had the most sales of these three categories, suggesting that they may also be the last category of combustion vehicles to go.
The makes and models are more diverse than the other categories, perhaps representing the wider range of PHEV models still available for purchase in Norway. Charged regularly, they are still more economical than conventional hybrids and petrol vehicles.
The nine brands represented are: Volvo, Ford, Land Rover, Mazda, Porsche, BMW, Kia, Mitsubishi and Toyota. The top four makes (Volvo, Ford, Range Rover, Mazda) comprise half of the 40 sales. Nevertheless, most of these PHEV models all have roughly equivalent BEV models available in the market. The Range Rover is one exception, where the EV version has not yet been released.
Then there is a long tail of models like the Mitsubishi Outlander, the BMW M5 and the Toyota RAV4 PHEV with one sale each. One wonders how you might go about ordering these. Online only, perhaps? Surely there are none in the showroom!
Make
Model
Volume
TOTAL
40
Volvo
XC60
8
Ford
Transit Custom
5
Land Rover
Range Rover Sport
4
Mazda
CX-60
3
Porsche
Cayenne
3
Porsche
Panamera
3
Volvo
XC90
3
BMW
X5
2
Porsche
Cayenne Coupe
2
BMW
7-serie
1
BMW
M5
1
BMW
XM Label Red
1
Kia
Sportage
1
Land Rover
Range Rover
1
Mitsubishi
Outlander PHEV
1
Toyota
RAV4
1
In February, there were also 67 diesel vehicles which I’ve omitted. If I repeat this exercise in the future, I will include them. I wish to acknowledge the assistance of OFV for their willingness to provide this data. I am sure they are consistently amused at international interest in the Norwegian car market!
Ben Elliston is the ACT branch chair of the Australian Electric Vehicle Association and an independent energy researcher.
