Do you have a car that is more expensive than average?

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(Al Bill 24): The year 2022 was a record year in terms of new car sales, not only in terms of number, but of course in sales as well. When you add up the list prices of all cars registered last year, the answer shows that the total value of all these new cars in 2022 was NOK 100.94 billion.

This year’s sales volume is a slap in the stomach, because when adding the first three quarters of 2023 together, only new passenger cars were sold for NOK 53.6 billion.

Society currently seems to be in an economic quagmire, which naturally also leaves its mark on the automobile industry. It’s a good thing they delivered so many cars in December, before VAT on more expensive electric cars starts on January 1. It created a vacuum in car sales in the first months of the year, and on top of that came all the interest rate increases.

Obviously, these things have scared away many people from ordering a new car and hence we have ended up in such situations as we have now. Because 2023 will go down in history as one of the weakest years for cars for a long time.

But it’s not just car sales that are declining. So is the revenue that AS Norge receives from car sales, and no, I’m not pointing out what’s missing because only a few cars have been sold. Because never before has the country’s income from new car sales been lower than it was in the peak year of 2022.

Because in 2022, NOK 3.54 billion flowed into the General Fund, a figure that as of 2015 amounted to NOK 12.79 billion, also according to OFV.

It is difficult to blame anything other than the tax exemption for electric cars, and the tax exemption in the form of a discount on the weight of hybrid cars. But we should not ignore the added value of this, which is reduced CO2 emissions. Because if the authorities can cut CO2 emissions in similar ways in other ways, this will by all accounts come at a cost no less massive than the loss of income from the one-time tax. Thus, we can take comfort in the fact that the absence of income has its benefits, and is worth it.

Grand Prize: Here is the Electric Sports Car of the Year!

At the same time, it does not seem so unfortunate for many of us, because according to tradition, we buy more and more expensive cars. Perhaps this is the point too, if we want to trust the tools of the market economy.

In 2023, this market economy does not seem to be at its best, which directly affects car prices. Because while the average price of all newly registered passenger cars has risen every year for the past 10 years, without exception, the average price has fallen this year.

In 2022, the average list price for all newly registered passenger cars in Norway was NOK 579,047, while this year it dropped to NOK 564,974. This is despite the fact that electric cars received a VAT of more than NOK 500,000 in addition. So the net price of the car is less than that.

This makes it easier for you to know whether you own a cheaper-than-average car, or more expensive, to the extent that it matters.

But if we divide the country into the respective counties, we see that Inlandet, Troms and Finnmark are the two counties with the highest list prices in the country. Rogaland and Vestland are the two counties where cars are bought at the lowest average prices, when list prices are taken into account.

Now we should add that the division between cars sold to the private sector and cars sold to the company is also changing. Only 4 to 5 years ago, most of the company’s cars were sold. We have to go back to 2018 to find the peak year for concept cars, when 53.9 percent of all passenger cars sold by a company were registered. In 2022, this number drops to 40.7 percent.

There’s no conclusion about what’s right or wrong with this, but the reason is, by all accounts, the company’s taxation of electric cars. The authorities encourage everyone to buy an electric car, but the same authorities do not expect business customers to also get something in return for choosing an electric car. Also, the state’s general budget proposal for 2024 did not take measures that might entice those wishing to purchase a new company car, and the auto industry has made statements that the company’s cars stand in the way of reaching the goal of 100 percent car sales. Electric cars in 2025 are still a possibility.

It then remains to be seen whether this budget proposal will be passed or not.