Norwegians flocked to car dealers last month in a rush to buy new electric cars (elbiler) before some of their tax advantages were removed. Cars sales for the month ended up rising 70 percent, and every third new car registered was a Tesla.
Fully 97.6 percent of the 19,899 new cars registered in November were electric, according to the state agency Opplynsningsrådet. Of those, new Teslas amounted for 6,215, up 175.2 percent over the same month last year when Tesla owner Elon Musk had lost favour with many Norwegians over his support for Donald Trump and his aversion to labour unions.
Now the Tesla founder is no longer part of those actively supporting Donald Trump and he seems to have been forgiven, with Tesla now enjoying a 31.2 percent market share in Norway. Musk himself used to be grateful to Norway for the already-high market share Tesla had for years because of the country’s pioneering pro-electric-car policies over the past two decades.
Those policies, which included everything from free road tolls to use of bus-lanes and much lower sales taxes, have since been pared back. A looming loss of low VAT on elbiler, though, was most likely behind the rush to automobile showrooms last month, after the government’s state budget proposal cut the VAT exemption to just NOK 300,000, from the current NOK 500,000. That meant buyers could save NOK 200,000 if they bought an electric car before January 1.
As it turned out, the budget proposal was renegotiated in part to appease the Greens Party. In addition to other changes, much of the VAT exemption was retained through next year and won’t disappear entirely until 2028. There’s no question elbiler nå make up the vast majority of Norway’s total carpark, followed by hybrids.
NewsinEnglish.no staff
