Tesla may be battling slumping sales across the US, Europe, and China this year, but there’s one corner of the world where Elon Musk can still hang the “Mission Accomplished” banner without irony.

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In Norway, the EV-obsessed Nordic nation, Tesla has secured its most impressive bragging right of 2025 with a near 35 percent sales lift year-to-date.

Tesla Broke a Long-Standing Record

The US electric vehicle brand is pulling in buyers so hard that it has sold more cars in the first 11 months of this year than any automaker has ever managed in an entire 12-month period in Norwegian history.

According to fresh registration data from OFV, the country’s official vehicle registry, Tesla moved 28,606 cars from January through November, blowing past Volkswagen’s long-standing record of 26,575 set back in 2016.

November alone saw a stunning 6,215 new Teslas hit the road, nearly triple last year’s tally, as Norwegians rushed to dealerships ahead of a scheduled EV tax hike landing on January 1.

Norway at one time exempted all EVs from tax in an effort to boost take-up, and even after a circa-$50k cap was introduced, most low- and mid-ranking Model 3s and Ys were below the threshold and still avoided the duty. But that limit is set to be lowered again next year and will scoop up Tesla’s most popular EVs.

The most popular of those in Norway right now is the Model Y, which remains the country’s favorite crossover even after a brief sales dip early in the year. Once the long-awaited refresh arrived in Q2, the Y rebounded strongly.

Norway’s Relentless EV March

But even drivers who are turned off by CEO Elon Musk and the Tesla brand are still loving electric power. An incredible 98.3 percent of all new cars sold last month were fully electric, Reuters reports, keeping Norway on track for its goal of ending new combustion-engine sales entirely in 2025.

VW grew its sales by almost 50 percent YTD and Kia by an incredible 153 percent, but neither gets close to Tesla’s market share.

And yet, Norway’s Tesla boom stands in stark contrast to the company’s global reputation for 2025. Worldwide deliveries are expected to fall 7 percent, consultancy Visible Alpha says, and US sales dropped 24 percent in October, having enjoyed a brief 18 percent rise in September as buyers tried to get into an EV before the federal tax credit program ended.

Norway EV Sales 2025

OFV

As vehicles grow ever more connected, a new kind of security concern is taking shape. In Norway, public buses built by a Chinese manufacturer have become a focal point of that debate. Even thousands of miles from their country of origin, the company behind them reportedly has the capability to shut them down remotely.

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The discovery comes out of Ruter, the nation’s largest public transport operator. It uncovered the potential security risk during a secret test inside of its own sealed facility.

Cyber Check or Cause for Alarm?

During that investigation, it tested a Dutch-built bus along with a Chinese one. Those from Yutong, a Chinese manufacturer, had Romanian SIM cards hidden inside the system.

According to Yutong, those SIM cards enable remote software updates and technical troubleshooting. While that may be true, the connection also gives Yutong the theoretical power to stop the buses or render them inoperable via a software update.

At this stage, Ruter has emphasized that it has found no evidence of malicious activity.

The tests were part of a broader cybersecurity audit designed to assess vulnerabilities in electric vehicles. Ruter CEO Bernt Reitan Jenssen emphasized that the agency is now “moving from concern to concrete knowledge,” implementing new safeguards and tightening procurement standards to ensure full local control.

Who Holds the Keys?

These measures include creating internal firewalls, isolating the buses from external cloud systems, and working with national authorities to strengthen cybersecurity protocols across the transport sector.

Norway’s Minister of Transport Jon-Ivar Nygård praised the initiative to NRK, stating the government is reviewing risk exposure from suppliers in nations outside Norway’s security alliances. “Together with players like Ruter, we will ensure that this sector is less exposed to risk,” he said.

The issue comes at a time when Norway is rapidly expanding its fleet of Chinese-built buses. Of the roughly 1,300 electric buses now in service nationwide, around 850 are made by Yutong. In Oslo and Akershus alone, about 300 operate daily.

While Ruter stresses that the likelihood of a shutdown is low, the test highlights a larger debate about foreign control over critical infrastructure. “It’s unlikely that these buses would ever be used in this way,” Jenssen said, “but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it very seriously.”

For the moment, Ruter is ensuring that each bus can continue to function independently by removing the SIM cards, effectively keeping operations local and offline.

Photos Ruter