Norway has been known to be the electric vehicle capital of the world due to the high percentage of electric vehicles in the country. On average, over 1 in 5 cars registered in Norway are now EVs (or a total of 21 % to be more exact), and almost all newly registered cars are EVs due to the amazing tax reduction on all non-fuel cars.
But there are big differences between different parts of Norway, and a recently published study by the Norwegian Road Federation (Opplysningsrådet for veitrafikken) has found that both cities Bergen and Oslo have more than one third of all cars being electric vehicles.
Bergen, the idyllic harbor city on Norway’s western coast, takes the lead of Norway’s cities with a total of 37 % of all cars being EVs. Norway’s capital city Oslo takes the 2nd spot with 34 %.
This high number of electric vehicles make Bergen city with the highest percentage of EVs in all of Europe, so you might even consider Bergen, Norway to be the EV capital of Europe these days.
Oslo plans to ban all non-EV cars in 2025
The local governing body of Oslo are working on implementing a policy to gradually reduce and eventually remove all non electric cars from the main city center, and are currently aiming to start the project in 2025.
If everything goes according to plan, all privately owned cars that drive within the Oslo city center are supposed to be EVs by 2032, but they are still waiting for the state government to allow for a policy change that allows the municipality to implement the policy.
Bergen are also planning similar policies, but have yet to announce a timeline or a plan on how they want to do it.
But it’s definitely likely that both cities will keep getting a higher and higher percentage of EVs in the future, seeing as both local and national policies are urging people to make the change.
Rural areas in Norway have less EVs compared to cities
The same study that mapped the number of EVs in Norway cities also looked at more rural areas, as unsurprisingly, the more rural the area, the lower the number of EVs are.
It does make a lot of sense considering the fact that these rural areas have less available public charging systems and fewer toll booths (these are free for EVs in Norway, urging people near them to change to EVs). It just makes less logistically and financially sense to make the change to EVs in rural areas, at least as of 2023.
In addition, rural areas tend to have longer distances between things, as well as worse driving conditions, making it less ideal of rely on EVs than big, fuel-based cars that are made for dealing with ice, snow and difficult driving conditions.
There are multiple Norwegian municipalities where less than 1 in 10 cars are EVs.
