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Norway's electric car appetite is insatiable — this company has sold almost 4000 cars before launching

• Tom Turula
  

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Opel Press Image
Norwegians are crazy about electric cars.

Last year it celebrated the registration of its 100,000th electric car, and the EV-appetite seems to carry on into this year. The market share of EV's is currently 17% of all cars in Norway.

While Tesla's deliveries in Norway dropped more than 50 percent during the first half of 2016, the country is still one of its most important markets.

And where Tesla is dropping (and putting its hope on the forthcoming Model X), other manufacturers are filling the gap.

In particular, Opel's new Ampera-E has been extremely well received by Norwegian car buyers.

Four months ahead of its launch, it has already pre-sold more than 3,700 cars to a value of more than 1,2 billion NOK (~$140m) in Norway. This is more than Opel sold throughout 2016, writes DN.no.

Opel credits its success largely to a savvy digital sales strategy.

"What we are seeing is that Norwegian car buyers are choosing a new way to buy their vehicles. We have sold cars on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and last but not least our e-commerce site e.no," says Bernt G. Jessen, acting Managing Director of Opel Norway in a press release.

The Ampera-E's USP is its long range of 520 kilometers, according to Opel.

Norway's bestselling electric cars 2016, according to DN.no:

VW Golf: 4705 cars
Nissan Leaf: 4162, BMW i3: 3943http://nordic.*.com/Static/dist/icons/linkedin-icon.svg