Nissan’s fully electric LEAF became the second-best selling car in Norway last month. A total of 495 electric vehicles were sold in the country in April, with 455 of those models being Nissan LEAFs.
This figure gives electric vehicles a 3.5 percent overall market share. In total, Norway has had more than 11,000 electric vehicles on the road, which is impressive for a country that only has a population of five million.
It’s long been the case that Norway was Nissan’s biggest European market for its first electric vehicle, where the small family car was the 13th best selling car in 2012, and had climbed to 5th place in March 2013 but last month’s results push Nissan to new highs.
Electric vehicles are popular in Norway because they qualify for exemption to VAT and purchase tax so that they cost around the same as a conventional car. Additionally, electric vehicles benefit from exemption to toll charges, permission to drive in bus lanes and free parking and charging in public car parks. These incentives will remain in place, in Norway, until at least 2018-or until at least 50,000 zero-emission cars are on the road-giving consumers confidence to go out and buy a battery-powered car.
“It is historic to have an electric car model as number two on the sales statistics. It shows that Norwegians have great faith in electric cars,” says Snorre Sletvold, President of the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association, “Norwegians have embraced the electric car.”
Norwegians typically drive just 42km (26 miles) a day- which is comfortably within the range of most electric vehicles currently on the market.
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