July brought sunny figures for passenger car registrations, with all four Nordic markets posting growth. All four markets are now positive for the year, with Norway just behind the others.
Passenger car registrations enjoyed a sunny July, with all four Nordic markets posting growth. Denmark registered 14,562 new passenger cars, up 5.5%. Sweden followed with growth of 4.6%, and Norway was up 0.5%. Finland had the strongest month: passenger car registrations rose 11.4% year on year. Teemu Rennola, CEO of Finland’s Value Clinic, says:
“The passenger car market is showing encouraging signs of recovery. Private customers’ car purchases have increased for several months in a row, suggesting confidence is gradually returning to the car market. It is also a significant milestone that electric cars account for more than half of all new registrations for the first time.”
Private consumers continue to drive electric car sales
Finland’s electric car market had more than just a high registration share to celebrate in July. The share rose from 36.3% to 51.5%, a 42% increase compared with July 2025, driven largely by private buyers. We see similar patterns in Sweden and Denmark. In Denmark, electric cars accounted for 80.2% of all registrations and 96.8% of registrations in the private segment alone. The overall share of electric cars is up 19.3% in a year. Sweden is also seeing electric car shares grow, with private buyers clearly shaping the trend. Andrée Peters, director at Bilstatistik.se, says:
“Private customers continue to drive car sales in Sweden. And they want electric cars. In this sales channel, the number of new registrations doubled in July compared with the same month last year. The figure would probably have been considerably higher if Tesla had not been affected by delivery problems, delivering only 65 cars compared with the more than 900 a month it normally delivered in 2026.”
Sweden’s electric car share reached 44.3%, compared with 35.6% in July 2025. After several years of consistently high electric car shares, Norway’s new car sales can now be described as effectively electric: 97.6% of all newly registered passenger cars in July were electric.
Major shifts in the model rankings
As last month, Toyota made a clear mark on the Nordic top 10 lists. The bZ4X took first place in both Norway and Denmark, while Toyota swept the top three in Finland. The monthly rankings in Sweden also included two Toyota models. Geir Inge Stokke, CEO of Norway’s OFV, explains the major shifts:
“In Norway, Toyota has gone from tenth place to first in one year, while Xpeng has moved from thirteenth to third. Tesla is still the largest brand year to date. This shows how new models, availability and large deliveries can quickly shift the monthly statistics, while longer-lasting changes need to be assessed over time.”
A tough month for vans
Truck registrations had a relatively stable month, while vans had a harder time. Sweden was the only market to finish above last year (+6.4%). Denmark, Finland and Norway fell by 28.3%, 23.8% and 15%, respectively. The year-to-date figures look somewhat better, but Sweden is still the only market with positive growth compared with last year: van registrations are up 19.5% through July. Finland is 12.1% below last year’s level, Norway is down 8.5%, and Denmark is just short of breaking even at -0.2%. Truck registrations are close to unchanged across all four markets. Sweden has the largest increase, at 2.4%, while the largest decline is a modest 0.7% in Denmark.
Sharing data
Figures and data from this article may only be shared with the following source references:
Danish data: Bilstatistik.dk
Swedish data: Bilstatistik.se
Norwegian data: Opplysningsrådet for veitrafikken (OFV)
Finnish data: Value Clinic (Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom, Transport Register)