Norway has reached a major milestone. There are currently more electric cars on the road than petrol cars. By mid-2024, the EV will have taken over the top spot for the first time, which is of course partly due to government policy. While this is undoubtedly interesting, we can make it much more interesting by comparing Norway to its neighbour Sweden and then see how these two countries compare to the Netherlands and Belgium.
The situation in Norway: many electric cars and the reason behind it
In Norway, around 754,000 fully electric cars were on the roads in mid-September, while petrol cars are not reaching 754,000 and are actually disappearing further and further from the streets. This is not very surprising, because despite many horror stories in the Dutch media, the Norwegian government is still planning to ban the combustion engine from 2025. From that year on, new cars will no longer be allowed to have a combustion engine, which will slowly but surely make petrol and diesel disappear from the scene.
Norway has invested a great deal of money to make this a reality. The country’s enormous oil revenues have been invested in tax incentives for electric driving, as well as in numerous (often free) charging facilities along its main traffic arteries.
So EV is leading in Norway?
No, but that won't be the case for much longer. There are still a million diesel cars in Norway, which are mainly popular outside the larger cities. The huge rise of electric driving has initially been limited to urban areas, especially in and around Oslo. Remote areas did not want electric cars when the government started the new policy, and this was not surprising. The average electric car had a range of 300 kilometers, which is simply not enough in these areas.
However, that picture is changing rapidly. Fewer and fewer diesel models are being sold in Norway and the number of electric cars being sold is increasing rapidly. About 90% of new cars sold now are electric. With the government stimulus and the much longer range of models like the Polestar and Volvo models (both fairly local models too), it is a matter of months before the electric car is completely in the lead in Norway. If the trend continues, this should be the case by early 2025 (certainly with the new laws in Norway).
What about neighboring Sweden?
It is not a strange thought to assume that the situation in Sweden should be somewhat similar. After all, Norway and Sweden are not that different, at least not at first glance. However, Sweden does not have the enormous oil fields and the government in Sweden is considerably more reserved than the Norwegian government. In Sweden, the electric car is lagging behind and there have been several months in which the sales of electric cars declined. Admittedly each time by a low percentage, but with that Sweden repeatedly broke the trend within the EU and it was even written in the Swedish media that Sweden was 'the brake on progress towards electric mobility in the EU'.
Back to concrete figures: in 2023, 38% of all new registrations were fully electric cars. A pretty high percentage, but far from the numbers that Norway shows and there are a number of reasons for that. We have listed the most important ones:
- Sweden – compared to the Netherlands and Norway – has a poor infrastructure when it comes to fast chargers and AC charging stations.
- The tax benefit in Sweden was already much smaller than in Norway and this benefit has also been reduced by approximately €000 per car to save on costs.
Now, two major caveats need to be made, because that is not the end of the story. The first caveat is that the Swedish government has recently started taking concrete steps towards an improved charging infrastructure. For example, all public parking spaces must be equipped with charging stations. Furthermore, each individual kommun (comparable to the Dutch municipality) may draw up its own policy to improve the infrastructure.
The other side note is that Swedes mainly opt for hybrid models. This undoubtedly has to do with the range anxiety that has played a major role in the country for a long time. Just like in Norway, the distances in Sweden are simply relatively large, but because Sweden does not have the charging infrastructure of Norway, range anxiety is an important factor in Sweden. The hybrid models, which charge themselves while driving on fossil fuel, solve most of the fear.
But why were the Tesla models returned?
It was widely reported in the international media and especially in the Netherlands, opponents of electric driving enjoyed the boats full of Tesla models that were not unloaded. Many people wrote that they had always predicted it and that the popular Tesla could now send all models back to be scrapped and that electric driving would no longer stand a chance.
All well and good, but this was not right. The boats were not unloaded because the mechanics in Sweden were on strike. They wanted collective labor agreements, something that Elon Musk refused. All the people who had ordered their Tesla had to watch helplessly as the models remained on the boats and Musk decided to stand his ground. So there was no question of less demand, it was a strike that would ultimately ensure that the Tesla brand would leave a bad taste in many Swedish mouths.
Norway-Sweden versus the situation in the Netherlands and Belgium
In Norway and Sweden, electric cars are particularly popular and they are working on ways to enable more batteries and other solutions. So how do we actually do it in the Netherlands and Belgium? Let's take a look to make the comparison complete.
The number of electric cars in the Netherlands
The Netherlands is lagging far behind, although there has been a significant increase. At the beginning of 2023, there were around half a million plug-in cars in the Netherlands, of which 65% were fully electric. However, the percentage of fully electric cars barely reached 4%. In the Netherlands, however, in contrast to Norway, the number of diesels is actually decreasing much faster.
In July 2024, the picture has not really changed, although the number of fully electric cars has now exceeded half a million (511,000). The number of hybrid cars also remains high at 333,767, which means that the number of plug-in cars in the Netherlands is slowly but surely creeping towards one million. However, we have to bow to a country like Norway, because in the Netherlands the percentage of fully electric cars is only 5.6% in July 2024. Fun fact: Tesla is at the top of the list of most registered fully electric cars in the Netherlands with two models. That is with the Tesla Model 3 and the Tesla Model Y.
The number of electric cars in Belgium
In Belgium, there was talk of an insane increase in the number of electric cars in 2024 of 83%. This high percentage is mainly due to an exceptionally low starting number, because in 2023 there were less than 140,000 EVs on the road in Belgium. In 2024, this will be around 250,000. This increase of 83% means that the percentage of fully electric cars in Belgium will be 4% in 2024 (there are more than 6 million cars on the road in our southern neighbours).
The hybrid is doing much better, however, with almost 12% market share. In 2024, more than 700,000 units have been added so far, which clearly shows that Belgium is in line with Sweden and is mainly opting for the hybrid. In Belgium, just like in the Netherlands, diesel is having a hard time. In 2024, we saw a decrease of no less than 12%. The number of petrol cars is still increasing in Belgium.
This is why Norway could claim the leading role
Norway has in fact become a race in which no other competitor could compete. With all the money from the oil fields, the Norwegian government has been able to invest a lot in tax benefits and the construction of an excellent charging infrastructure with fast chargers, which has contributed greatly to the success of electric driving.
The Netherlands has won another race and is still in the lead, and this is a race that the Norwegians cannot possibly compete in. The Netherlands has been the country with the best density of charging stations (both fast chargers and standard charging stations) for quite some time now. The relatively small size of the Netherlands and the many kilometers of highways and motorways make it considerably easier to increase the number of charging stations per square kilometer.
This makes the Netherlands and Norway currently leading countries in Europe when it comes to electric driving, charging options and the number of electric cars per capita. It is striking that both countries have a direct neighbor where the fully electric car is less popular, and many people opt for hybrid cars.
