Germany overtakes Norway as Europe’s biggest EV market

11 December 2019 Tim Urquhart

Germany has officially overtaken Norway as Europe's biggest market for electric vehicles (EVs) after the sales figures for the first 11 months were collated for both countries. According to Bloomberg, once the registration data was compared for the 11 months from both countries' data providers, it showed that Germany had overtaken Norway for the first time in EV sales since they began selling in significant numbers, with Germany registering 57,533 full battery electric vehicles (BEVs) to Norway's 56,893 units for the first 11 months of the year.

Significance: Norway had led the European EV market since the Nissan Leaf became the first mainstream volume EV passenger car in 2010. This is because Norway's buoyant economy, as a result of its oil and gas revenues, meant that it was able to offer a progressive programme of extensive government subsidies to incentivise the sale of EVs, while also investing heavily in charging infrastructure. However, Norway only has 6.4% of the population of Germany, which is Europe's biggest automotive market, so it was only a matter of time before Germany surpassed it; especially with the larger number of advanced orders for the Tesla Model 3 being fulfilled since its launch at the end of the first quarter. The Audi e-tron and Mercedes-Benz EQC have also contributed, while the launch of the Volkswagen (VW) ID.3 and Porsche Taycan should bring further accelerated growth in the German EV market in 2020.