Electric car sales keep climbing and climbing [cleantechnica.com] in Norway. In 2013, many of us were shocked to learn that electric cars were account for about 10–15% of new car sales in the country. We are now well aware of the fact that the Norway electric vehicle market is in a league of its own, and just yesterday I wrote about the breakdown of June electric car sales in the picturesque country. But I skipped one important note, the percentage of new car sales that were electric car sales.
Jeff Cobb reminded me of this important matter when he published an article yesterday highlighting that 22.9% of new cars in Norway are now plug-in electrified cars. And if you want some serious perspective here, catch this line: “Comprised of battery electric cars and plug-in hybrids, if the same thing were to happen in the US on a percentage basis, it would have meant 1,943,177 new PEVs on American roads since January.” We have 50,503 new PEVs on our roads since January, about 2.6% of that number….
It's still a small fraction of the total vehicle fleet in Norway, but it signals a shift in car buyer preferences. What percentage or absolute number of EV purchases constitutes a tipping point?