In September Norwegians bought electric vehicles that gave zero-emission vehicles a 45% market share, says Advisory Council of Veitrafikken AS.
A total of 4,810 passenger plug-in cars were registered in Norway last month, up 25% from a year ago. The surge in electric cars has greatly reduced average CO2 emissions per vehicle declined to 55 g/km, a 21% drop from a year ago.
Customers are preferring all-electric vehicles with hybrid car sales declining 34% from a year ago and sold only 2,779 units in September. Norway is expected to continue voting for electric vehicles with their pocketbooks as major car manufacturers are rushing into the electric vehicle space.
Mercedes Benz invested $12 billion in the space, and will be introducing luxury electric SUVs and passenger cars. It’ll be interested to see how the company fairs in Norway.
Looking at four major markets — China, Europe, Japan and North America — vehicle sales in the 12 months ending in June increased by about 1.15 million units, year over year. Of that, about 565,000 were electric vehicles. In other words, almost half the growth in the overall car market was taken by the plug-ins.
That surge in the share of growth is, in part, a cyclical phenomenon. Growth in vehicle sales for these four markets was running at about 3 to 4 million a year in 2015 and 2016, but that slowed dramatically to an annual run rate of about 1.2 million since the start of 2017.
Important reminder of other factors affecting air quality
Across the Baltic Sea in Poland, a recent report has come out saying that Polish institutions are not acting fast enough to improve the air quality in their country. Poland has some of the worst air quality in Europe with cities in the south having denser smog than New Delhi and Beijing, mostly due to citizens burning low quality coal and rubbish to heat their homes.
Polish government officials have downplayed the issue of smog, with the energy minister saying that pollution does not cause premature death. Polish, which generates most of its electricity from coal, hosts United Nations climate talks in December with 200 government environmental ministers meeting to discuss details of the 2015 Paris climate accord.
[Via Mining]