Almost a third of new cars sold in Norway last year were fully electric, a new world record as the country strives to end sales of fossil-fueled vehicles by 2025.
It helps, of course, that Norway exempts battery-driven cars from most taxes and offers benefits such as free parking and charging points to hasten a shift from diesel and gasoline engines.
The independent Norwegian Road Federation said electric cars rose to 31.2 percent of all sales last year, from 20.8 percent in 2017 and 5.5 percent in 2013. Nissan's Leaf was the top-selling car in Norway last year.
Overall, new-car sales in Norway fell 6.8 percent in 2018 to 147,929 vehicles, breaking a rising trend in recent years.
The International Energy Agency, using a slightly different yardstick for EVs that includes plug-in hybrids, showed Norway's share of such cars at 39 percent in 2017, far ahead of second-place Iceland, at 12 percent, and Sweden, at 6 percent.
By contrast, such electric cars had a 2.2 percent share in China in 2017 and 1.2 percent in the U.S., the agency's data shows.
Sales of full electric cars in Norway surged 40 percent to 46,092 in 2018.
The Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association, a lobbying group, predicted a 100 percent market share was feasible. "We know that charging access is a real barrier ... and there's also a risk that not enough cars become available," said Christina Bu, head of the association, adding that some customers must wait for a year or more before their EV is delivered.
