Photo by Josh Bogardus
This year, Iceland has seen a marked increase in electric vehicles, with combined sales of EVs/PHEVs now exceeding sales of petrol and diesel vehicles. ICE vehicles are now a minority among newly registered vehicles, primarily due to Tesla's growing popularity in the country.
Hybrid cars are still popular, but electric vehicles are the most popular. This is the first time in Iceland's history that petrol or diesel vehicles have taken up less than half of the country's new car registrations. This year their share is only 45%, and there is no sign that the trend will reverse, reported mbl.is.
Throughout this year, Tesla has repeatedly become the best-selling electric vehicle in the country and thus became the best-selling electric vehicle there in 2020.
In the first nine months of 2020, Tesla registered 742 vehicles, accounting for 23% of the electric vehicle market share in the country. This in turn has been the driving force behind Iceland's record of such high sales of electric vehicles.
Source: EV-sales
Tesla officially opened sales of its cars for Iceland only in September 2019. It is worth noting that this small island, with a population of about 360,000, was an ideal place for the introduction of electric vehicles. Electricity generation on the island is almost 100% renewable, making electric cars ultra-clean. Gasoline is expensive here because it has to be delivered to a remote island.
Electric cars are gaining popularity and as of 2019, there were already 15% of the total number of cars on the island. Although Iceland is a very small market that does not bring significant volume to Tesla, it is an excellent indicator of how popular it is. And importantly, it is another successful notch on Tesla's track record in its mission to accelerate the world to sustainable energy.
© 2020, Eva Fox. All rights reserved.
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Article edited by @SmokeyShorts, you can follow him on Twitter
About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
