The market for electric vehicles (EVs) expanded further in Norway in 2022 with Norway’s Road Traffic Information Council data showing that 79.3% of all new passenger vehicles sold were electric, up from 64.5% in 2021.

The number of electric cars sold stood at 138,265 out of the total sales of 174,329 last year.

The clamor for EVs was attributed to an expectation of a new weight tax and value-added tax (VAT) on EVs for the part of the price that exceeds NOK 500,000 (~$50,713), to be imposed in the new year.

Council’s Director Øyvind Solberg Thorsen said, “Almost 40,000 first-time registered new passenger cars in December alone, means that just over 22% of the entire year’s new car registrations were made during the last month of the year. Altogether, there were only 1,947 new cars that separate 2022 from the record year 2021.”

Increased demand for EVs also resulted in a 16.2% and 23.3% drop in sales of petrol and diesel cars, respectively. The proportion of new petrol and diesel passenger cars registered for the first time in 2022 totaled 6.7%. The registrations for the new plug-in petrol hybrids in 2022 stood at 14,336 which is 60.8% fewer than in 2021.

EV makers like Tesla, Volkswagen, Volvo, BMW, and Skoda among others emerged as the most preferred brands among Norwegian buyers.

Thorsen said, “Although a record number of people got a new car in December, it is clear that many who ordered a car a long time ago will not receive the car until 2023 – and then with new taxes on top. The government was not willing to give everyone, who had already ordered a new car before the proposal for the state budget for 2023 became known, an exemption from the new taxes.”

Norway was one of the 16 countries that earlier this year committed $94 billion for clean energy demonstration projects worldwide, at the first-ever Global Clean Energy Action Forum in Pittsburgh.

Last May, the International Energy Agency said that lithium rates peaked over seven times from May 2021 tightening the global EV battery supply chain. The demand for automotive lithium-ion batteries reached 340 GWh in 2021, more than twice the demand in 2020, primarily driven by the increase in electric passenger cars, which observed a 120% surge in registrations last year.