Gas cars, on the other hand, may not even live that long. According to a research published in the Norwegian Automobile Federation's magazine, Motor, the declining trend in gas car sales has been so continuous and steep that the last new gas car sale in Norway could happen as soon as April 2022, just seven months from now.
Norway's Road Traffic Council publishes monthly sales numbers for all cars sold in the country, so we know exactly how many new cars with each powertrain option are sold. Cars without any form of electrification accounted up fewer than 10% of new auto sales in the most recent accounting, down from nearly 21% the year before.
If the trend of recent years continues, the trend line will reach zero in April 2022. This is a lot sooner than their 2025 aim (which, to be fair, is more of a soft target agreed upon by Norway's government than a legal requirement).
Conventional hybrids are listed as "electrified" in these statistics - an odd classification given that they still obtain 100% of their energy from gasoline – but all of the top vehicles can run at least partially on electricity. In any case, conventional hybrids account for less than 10% of new car sales.
As Motor.no points out in their piece, the last gas car will most likely not be marketed until April 2022. There are exceptions to every rule, and not every car segment offers a good selection of vehicles.
However, outside of these rare exceptions or niche cars, there is a strong trend that there will be few mass-market sales of non-electric vehicles. Norway may even allow a limited number of gas car sales to continue until 2025, assuming that the numbers will be small enough that a legal ban will have no effect.
14 of Norway's top 15 cars have been all-electric since the start of the year, with the RAV4 Prime, in second place, being the only plug-in hybrid in the top 15. The Toyota Corolla hybrid takes 16th place, and we have to go all the way down to 38th place to locate the first car without an electric power train, the Volkswagen Tiguan diesel.
Strong tax incentives for electric vehicles can be credited for much of Norway's head start. Electric vehicles are exempt from a large tax that applies to gas vehicles. As a result, compared to price-competitive gas cars, you can buy a much better EV at any price.
But that tax cut hasn't changed in a long time, and electric car sales continue to rise. In reality, in recent years, EVs have lost several of their advantages, such as free parking and toll road tax exemptions.
The increased variety of available vehicles, as well as a general cultural tendency toward EVs, are driving the increase in EV sales. Nobody wants to be stuck with a vehicle they won't be able to fuel in ten years, specially now that it's clear that gas automobiles are on their way out. After all, several Norwegian gas stations have already started to replace pumps with chargers.
We've said before that we believe gas car phaseout targets are too conservative to deal with climate change, and that public opinion will likely shift faster than many people are expecting. Governments and automakers all have their own expectations for when the internal combustion engine will be taken out, but many of these ideas are just incorrect.
Ford, GM, and Stellantis, for example, have stated a goal of 40-50 percent electric vehicle sales by 2030. Our question was, "Who is going to buy the remaining 50%?"
Norway shows what happen when the ball is truly rolling. It just doesn't make sense to buy a gas automobile after a certain point.
However, this is true of nearly every new technology. When a new technology is presented, early adopters accept it slowly until an inflection point is reached, at which point broad adoption begins. Consider the difference between film and digital cameras. The new technology is then swiftly adopted across a population, with only a few stragglers using the old technology at the end. This is normally done in a “S-curve.”
Wherever EVs are introduced, they will most likely follow the same pattern. Electric vehicle sales have been fast increasing in the United States and Europe, and this trend is likely to continue. Not only will existing models see increased sales (as long as automakers produce enough of them), but new models will also see “surprisingly” high demand right away.
Those who are not prepared for this transformation, such as automakers, consumers, suppliers, gas station managers, governments, and others, will be caught off guard. You may not know it, but the transformation is occurring more faster than you believe. Prepare yourself.
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