Half of all new cars sold in Norway in 2017 were electric or hybrid

Electric car rally, Geiranger Norway (Image: Norsk elbilforening via Flickr)

Norway was one of the earliest nations to set a coherent and broad-based national plan to cut its carbon emissions, and then stick to it.

For road transport, it plans to phase out sales of cars with internal-combustion engines by 2025 using a variety of carrots (financial incentives and special privileges) and sticks (very high taxes on conventional vehicles) to get there.

In 2016, 40% of new car sales were electrified in some way. Now the Norwegian Road Federation reports that more than half of new vehicles sold in 2017 were electric or hybrid. Battery-electric cars now constitute almost 150,000 of the country's 2.7 million on-road vehicles, or roughly 5 percent.

The power to drive these vehicles comes from an electricity grid made up of 98% renewable energy. This renewable energy is mostly flexible hydropower plus wind and thermal energy.

Read further at: Half of all new cars sold in Norway last year are electric or hybrid, as diesel ebbs fast. Green Car Reports, Jan 8, 2018.