Nissan Leaf #7 Best-Selling Car In Norway In July

The Nissan Leaf is continuing to sell very, very well in Norway, as the recent sales figures for July show. The Leaf was the 7th-best-selling new passenger vehicle in the country in July, capturing 2.4% of the whole market. In total, 268 Nissan Leafs were registered in July in Norway.

While being the 7th-best-selling vehicle in the country is quite impressive for an EV, it was actually ranked a bit higher than that in recent months, so it has fallen (comparatively) some. In 2013, the car has seen substantial improvement over last year’s sales, though — year to date, 2,242 Leafs have sold in the country, as compared to 2,298 sold in all of 2012. That’s a substantial improvement — at this rate, sales this year will be nearly double what they were last year. 🙂

For those wondering why Norway has a much higher rate of EV use/adoption than the US, it’s largely down to the great incentives that the government there has put in place to spur the market’s growth: the government has reduced the VAT for EVs to zero, installed a nationwide network of charging stations, has created electric-car-only car parks (that’s European for “parking lots”), etc.

InsideEVs provides more information: “LEAF still is king of electrics in Norway, because only 10 other units were sold in July (and two vans, to be accurate). So, for now, Tesla is not making a big dent with only 5 registrations, but it probably will in August when Model S volume deliveries begin.”

Tesla’s Model S will hit the European market in August. “Delivery events” are currently planned for the cities of Oslo, Zurich, and Tilburg, around the beginning of the month. Model S deliveries to Europe are expected to be ramped up gradually after that.