ROME Volkswagen will stop selling new petrol and diesel cars in Norway from 2024, the importer has announced. “As a farewell to fossil fuel cars, the last Golf will be ordered towards the end of the year,” said Ulf Tore Hekneby, head of the Norwegian Moller Group. “In many ways, this will mark the end of an era, but also the beginning of a new and more important era in which we will be more part of the solution and not the problem,” he added.
Despite being an important producer of hydrocarbons, Norway has set itself the ambitious goal of selling only zero-emission cars, i.e. mainly electric, starting from 2025, ten years ahead of the EU. According to the Council for Road Traffic Information (OFV), electric cars already account for more than 80% of new registrations in Norway (83.4% in the first nine months of the year).
Second manufacturer in Norway, with a market share of 12.32% since January, behind the American Tesla (21.4%), also an electric specialist, Volkswagen will now focus on the models of its electric ID range. In September, the ID.4 SUV was the second best-selling model in the country, behind the Tesla Model Y. Swedish Volvo, a subsidiary of the Chinese Geely group, also stopped selling its diesel models in Norway on June 1st.