Norway April 2021: VW ID.4 swoops to pole position, NIO lands in market up 77.3%

The VW ID.4 holds 13.9% share in Norway. Picture nybiltester.no

New car sales in Norway rally back up 77.3% year-on-year in April to 13.166 units, keeping in mind April 2020 was down -34% on the year prior which at the time was the smallest drop in Europe. The year-to-date tally is now up 24.4% to 49.475 sales. BEVs are up 96.9% year-on-year in April to 7.229 and 54.9% share vs. 49.4% a year ago, PHEVs soar 121.5% to 3.316 and 25.2% share vs. 20.2% a year ago and HEVs are up 56.4% to 918 and 7% share vs. 7.9%. All in all, electrified vehicles account for 87.1% of the Norwegian market this month vs. 90.5% last month and 77.5% in April 2020. In contrast, petrol cars hold 7.4% share vs. 10.6% a year ago and diesel is at 5.5% vs. 11.9% in April 2020. Year-to-date, BEVs are up 31.8% to 26.388 and 53.3% share vs. 50.3% over the same period in 2020, PHEVs up 80.7% to 13.948 and 28.2% share vs. 19.4% and HEVs down -8.3% to 3.491 and 7.1% share vs. 9.6% in 2020.

NIO makes its first appearance in a sales charts outside of China.

In the brands ranking, Volkswagen (+110.3%) takes the lead with a fantastic 18.4% share due to one model in particular as we’ll see further down. Toyota (+199.4%) and Volvo (+237%) return excellent year-on-year evolutions to remain in 2nd and 3rd place. Winner last month, Tesla implodes to #34 with just 5 minuscule sales. The tyranny/irony of quarterly results has spoken. Below, BMW (+57.4%), Skoda (+65%) and Mercedes (+33.2%) can’t match the market growth while Audi (-17%) is down. Peugeot (+81.1%) just edges past the market in 8th place, while Polestar is up 5 spots on last month to return inside the Top 10 brands for the first time since January at #9. Newcomer Xpeng interrupts its growth and falls 7 spots on March to #30 with just 0.2% share. Scheduled to start “real” deliveries in September, another Chinese EV maker makes its first appearance outside of China this month: NIO with two units. BYD is also preparing for a launch in Norway later this year.

The Skoda Enyaq breaks into the Norwegian Top 10.

Model-wise, after leaping onto the podium last month, the VW ID.4 swoops into first place with a whopping 13.9% share as backorders get fulfilled. It launches the model to third place overall in the year-to-date charts. The Toyota RAV4 (+781.2%) and Volvo XC40 (+725%) surf on the success of their  new green variants and take the first two spots year-to-date. Leader last month, the Tesla Model 3 sinks to #146 with just four sales and goes from #1 to #4 year-to-date. Below the Audi e-Tron (-19.7%) in difficulty, the Polestar 2 scores a fourth Top 5 finish and first one in 2021 at #5. The Skoda Enyaq is up 59 spots on March to brilliantly break into the Norwegian Top 10 at #7 while the Toyota Corolla (+260.7%) easily outpaces the market at #9. Below the ID.4 and Enyaq, the VW ID.3 (#14), Mercedes EQA (#24), Mazda MX-30 (#25) and BMW iX3 (#30) are the best-selling recent launches in Norway. The NIO ES8 lands at #180.

Previous month: Norway March 2021: Tesla Model 3 leads, VW ID.4 lands on podium, Xpeng up

One year ago: Norway April 2020: Mercedes, Audi, Porsche defy smallest market drop in Europe (-34%)

Full April 2021 Top 50 All-brands and Top 210 All-models below.