Overview:
Electric Vehicles are a key part of our tomorrow and how we get there. If we can get all the fossil fuel vehicles off our roads, out of our seas and out of our skies, we'll have a much better environment. This community is where we discuss the various different vehicles and news stories regarding electric transportation.
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The “concerning” way of framing these numbers would be to say that diesel car market share nearly tripled year over year, going from 1.5% in Jan 2025 to 4.4% in 2026, as EV sales dropped to about a quarter of their previous numbers. But that’s more a reflection of diesel car unit sales being so small as to be negligible, and EV unit sales being shifted forward into December instead of January.
98 diesel, 29 hybrids, 6 petrol, 2084 EVs. For the full perspective. Well done Norwegians
Would be interesting to see this compared to total car sales in a year - including used ones.
In a hypothetical where new cars get so expensive that most people are forced to buy used, you could still report "100% of new cars sold are electric" while more and more people quietly switch to cheaper used gas and diesel instead.
I don't think that's happening here, but it's definitely something to consider.
I consider myself middle class, but I'd never buy a brand-new car - and even used electric trucks are way out of my price range. I drive a diesel because I have no option.
I think this is the first month without incentives for EVs or at least reduced amounts. So previous data would be a bit skewed.
Used cars were all new cars at some point. In a place with 99% of new sales are EVs for an extended period of time, you'll eventually get to where used non-EVs in decent condition aren't affordable/obtainable. Especially when those people buying them are possibly disproportionately buying the non-EVs for ideological reasons and will hold on to them longer as non-EVs become more and more inaccessible.
I still think it would be interesting to see those stats.
How long before you can't afford to maintain the diesel? I drove a diesel until rust caused the fuel tank to drop - I could still fix it but that is more than I have time to do myself and the cost is half way to a new car (i bought a 3 year old ev to get something nicer), with there lively being a similar amount of maintenance next year. I miss the ability to haul a 10000lbs but since nobody makes basic trucks anything I can afford was not much better (and thus only a few years from the same rust issues)
even if nobody bought a new car this year, used cars are all getting older and so it won't be long before someone has to buy new just to get anything
I think the bigger question is how long until you can't get fuel without a hassle.
Very true. Right now most cars are still petro and so stations are everywhere. The average car is about 12 years old and most poor people will choose to scrap them at around 25, so there are plenty of stations to meet the demand. However in a few years that average will not include enough petro to support as many stations - how will they respond is a question.
in 20 years petro will be a special order thing outside of a few niches. At least by current trends - perhaps some alternative will come and change everything, who knows.
That's the other thing I like about electric. I am able to generate electricity on my property with solar panels. Can't really refine oil into gasoline or diesel on my property.
Maybe you can't but there are people with natural oil springs on their land who could. I don't know any who do and the amount coming from the springs isn't much, but they could.
ethanol fuel is done by a few people at home, it isn't hard, just takes a lot of labor.
How long before you can’t afford to maintain the diesel?
Decades. That's not really the point of what I'm saying though.
Any Norwegians here? Can someone tell me how the public charging infrastructure works in Norway?
In Spain we have about 10 different networks and they all require Android/iOS app to use. Each app requires your ID, email, phone number and credit card. Setting this up on Graphene OS is huge pain in the ass, the app for the biggest network simply doesn't work at all. The chargers work maybe 70% of the time. There's a public website with map of all the chargers but no app. Some chargers can be used through different networks and price will differ depending on which provider you're using or even what payment method you're using. Planning a longer trip is a nightmare. I've been driving EV for 3 years now and if things don't improve fast I don't think my next car will be electric.
What's the situation in Norway? What's motivating people to buy EVs?
Charging situation: We have tons of chargers, and they are all required to take credit cards. You can use their app, or unified apps, but you don't need to. The chargers show up in Google Maps, CoMaps, and specialized EV apps. There are chargers distributed evenly over the country, so that even in winter when the car has about 60% of normal range, there is no problem finding fast chargers and taking short breaks. Calculated for range and such, even fast chargers are way cheaper than gas, you can multiply the price by about 3 to get the equivalent liters per 10 kilometers.
Motivation to buy EVs: Sure, we've had a bunch of incentives, like a lower purchase tax, access to bus lanes, free parking and so on. But the main motivation has been and always will be these:
There's an EU legislation that says all charger above 47kWh have to accept credit card but in Spain it was simply ignored. I know chargers that were installed after this was passed, they were partially financed by the government and they don't accept credit cards, app only. Another issue besides reliability is that lots of chargers are in the middle of nowhere. Gas stations always have someone working there, not to mention that you can use a bathroom or get a coffee. Majority of charges in Spain are just a charger with nothing around. For me it's just inconvenient but I imagine how women must feel using them during the night... Still, if all chargers accepted card payment I would be able to live with it because as you say, EVs are great overall but the fact that I have to deal with incredibly frustrating apps on top of bad infrastructure is a bit too much for me.
Hmm, well if it's an EU law, then it should be enforced. I bet they will implement credit card support faster if threatened with a fine if they don't