Norway EV sales maintain extraordinary pace at 97 pct market share, Tesla back on top

Norway continues to serve as the world leader for electric vehicle (EV) adoption, once again seeing the EV share account for 97 per cent of all new car sales in a single month.

The Opplysningsrådet for veitrafikken (OFV), Norway’s Road Traffic Information Council, published on Monday new passenger car sales data that showed total sales of 13,915 for the month of August, up 25.2 per cent compared to August 2024.

And, for the fourth month in the last five, EVs accounted for around 97 per cent of all new passenger cars sold. A total of 13,482 new fully electric passenger cars were sold in August, bringing the total number of EVs sold through the first eight months of 2025 to 93,524, an overall share of 94.5 per cent.

Of the just over 2.9 million passenger cars on Norway’s roads, 30 per cent are now electric.

Only 433 passenger cars sold in Norway in August were not pure electrics, but even then, 263 of those were some time of hybrid.

“We have never seen such a high total share of electric cars at the beginning of September, even though we have had individual months with a higher share,” said Øyvind Solberg Thorsen, OFV director.

“Of the almost 14,000 new passenger cars in August, there were fewer than five hundred different variants of petrol and diesel cars.”

Interestingly, unlike across much of the rest of continental Europe, Tesla has returned to primacy in Norway, finishing August as the best-selling car brand with 3,014 units sold, and accounting for  21.7 per cent of all new passenger cars sold.

The revamped Tesla Model Y led the way with 2,456 units sold in August, while the Tesla Model 3 was the third best-selling model with 552 units sold.

Securing second spot for best-selling car brands was Volkswagen with 1,782 units and accounting for a 12.8 per cent share. Volkswagen had three cars in the top six, including the ID.4 (656), ID.3 (482), and ID.7 (412).

The OFV expects many of the ongoing promotional campaigns to continue throughout the year which will help to ensure the momentum in new car sales, and in particular, new EV sales.

“An increasingly large electric car fleet is good for everyone, and replacing old cars with new ones is a goal in itself,” said Thorsen.

“New cars pollute less, and not least they are safer.

In terms of which car brands we choose, Tesla and Chinese car brands currently have a combined market share of just over 30 per cent. It will be interesting to see how this develops in relation to the classic brands that Norwegians have traditionally chosen.”