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NEWS
Nissan LEAF dominates EV sales in Norway
Electric vehicle is truly green in Scandinavian market, and keeps owners in the blackNissan's LEAF has topped the EV/hybrid automotive sales charts in Norway, taking just under six per cent of the Scandinavian country's sales for October.
The LEAF chalked up 716 sales for the month, knocking Tesla's Model S out of the top spot it achieved in September. Model S sales figures spiked with the arrival of a large consignment of stock, with most of its 616 sales for September – 5.1 per cent of the industry total – filling a backlog of orders.
The Californian company's sales plummeted in October to 98 units. The LEAF, however, has sold steadily through the year for Nissan, with 3755 sales earning the number four spot in year-to-date figures behind the Volkswagen Golf, the Toyota Auris (Corolla) and Mazda's CX5.
If that figure doesn't sound very large, consider this: Norway has a population of just over five million. In Australia, those 716 sales translate proportionally into around 3000 – Corolla and Camry territory. In the US it's more like 43,000 – more than 20 times the 2002 LEAFs Nissan sold there in October.
Nissan attributes the LEAF's success to Norway's strong skew towards urbanisation. At 80 per cent and growing, it creates a large potential customer base of commuters travelling relatively short distances day to day. Nevertheless, Nissan says, most of this year's growth in LEAF sales has been in rural areas.
Much of that comes back to one of the world's richest incentive schemes. Buy an EV there and you're eligible for full VAT and road tax exemptions, parking and bus lane privileges and free charging.
According to studies by Statistics Norway, the total tax benefits amount to more than $8K a year: about $1400 a year on the purchase price, plus another $1400 in toll exemptions, around $5K's worth of free parking and miscellaneous benefits adding up to about $400.
All in an environment that places heavy tax burdens on buyers of conventional cars. A Golf worth around $25K in the UK, for example, costs about $40K in Norway. The LEAF, by comparison, costs around $35K.
Norway is a major player in the global oil and natural gas industries, drawing in massive reserves in the North Sea. These fossil fuels provide the revenue to fund tax breaks for EV buyers. Yet an almost entirely hydro-powered domestic grid means that when Norwegians buy an EV, they're doing a lot more to help Mother Earth than consumers in most other countries.
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Written byJeremy Bass
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