Hyundai: only electric cars will be sold in Norway this year.

CTOnews.com, January 2, according to TheKoreaTimes, Hyundai Motor Co., Ltd. said on Sunday that it had decided to start selling only electric vehicles (EV) in Norway this year.

According to Hyundai Motor Europe, the carmaker has revealed its ambitions to set a new milestone in the Scandinavian country by 2023. The carmaker ended sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV) at the end of 2022 and began selling only electric vehicles in Norway, which will be its first attempt in the global market.

"our European branch has decided to sell only electric cars in Norway, and the headquarters in Seoul have confirmed that," said a Hyundai executive.

The company has announced plans to stop selling internal combustion engine cars in Europe from 2035 and sell only electric vehicles worldwide by 2040. Its decision to stop selling diesel cars in Norway advanced its original plan in the country by 12 years. There is a reason for this, because Norway was one of the earliest adopters of the electric car market. The country is offering various incentives with the goal of converting all new car sales to electric vehicles by 2025.

As of November last year, 81.6% of new cars registered in Norway were electric, suggesting that the Scandinavian country is implementing its eco-friendly program.

CTOnews.com learned that most of the models previously sold in Norway were PHEV models, which accounted for 17.4% of the market share as of November 2020. As of last year, however, its share of sales had fallen to 7.7 per cent, ceding its number one position to electric cars. In the same period, hybrid vehicles accounted for 7.3% of the market share, while diesel vehicles accounted for only 2.2%.