A total of 13,983 new electric passenger cars were registered in March in Norway. This corresponds to a market share of 86.1 per cent of all new passenger car registrations in the month. In addition, there were 947 new plug-in hybrids. In terms of models, Tesla dominated in March.
After a weaker start to the year, March was again a strong month. Compared to March 2021 – when 8,624 new electric cars were registered – this represents an increase of 62.1 per cent. Compared to the 6,160 new registrations from February 2022, March represents an increase of 127 per cent.
Across all drive types, 16,238 new vehicles were registered in Norway in March, marking the first time this year that the Norwegian car market was up 6.0 per cent. However, due to the weaker months of January and February, 10.9 per cent fewer vehicles were registered in the first quarter than in Q1 2021.
A comparison of the 16,238 total vehicles and the 13,983 electric passenger cars shows the share of electric cars in this market development. Specifically, it is 86.1 per cent, whereby the vast majority of electric cars are battery-electric cars – fuel cell cars are not reported separately by the Norwegian OFV.
Adding the 947 plug-in hybrids (market share 5.8 per cent), 91.9 per cent of all new registrations in Norway in March were plug-in. However, the trend continued for PHEVs: both in March and in Q1 as a whole, registrations were 78 per cent below the figures from the previous year. The remaining hybrids without an external charging option came to 2.7 per cent market share, petrol cars to 2.8 per cent and diesels to 2.6 per cent.
The Norwegian car market has thus returned to the level seen in the fourth quarter of 2021. Whether the weaker months of January/February are an exception or the “recovery” in March will then become clear in the coming months. Looking at the models, it is clear that March was characterised by Tesla’s typical registration boom in the last month of a quarter.
The Model Y accounted for 3,305 new registrations, while the Model 3 achieved 1,696 registrations – at the end of January, neither model was even in the top-20 statistics. However, with the strong March result, both models came in first (Model Y with 3,328 new registrations) and second (Model 3 with 1,736 vehicles) in Q1.
In both March and the quarter, the VW ID.3 follows in 3rd place. In March, the Zwickau-built e-SUV came in with 1,111 new registrations, in the quarter it was 1,712 ID.4. 4th place goes to the MEB sister model Audi Q4 e-tron (incl. Sportback) with 667 vehicles in March and 1,698 units in the current year. In March, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 (591 vehicles), the BMW iX (562 vehicles), the Polestar 2 (549 units), the Volvo XC40 (386 units, but including PHEV and ICE) follow ahead of the Audi e-tron quattro (359 vehicles) and the Ford Mustang Mach-E (322 units).
In the quarter, pure BEV models accounted for the top 11, only coming in 12th place is the Toyota RAV4 as a hybrid, which still managed to hold onto the top spots last year. The aforementioned XC40 is the next model that is not only available as a BEV. The next three places go to purely electric cars: the Kia EV6, Mercedes EQC and Hongqi E-HS9.
With reporting by Sebastian Schaal, Germany.
ofv.no, ofv.no (models, both in Norwegian)
Keyword: Norway registered 13,983 new BEVs in March