Norway Is China’s Great Electric Car Proving Ground
More than a dozen Chinese automakers are or will soon be exporting EVs to Europe and the U.S., and most and see the Nordic country as a key test market.
Kjersti Midttveit and Kjell Emil Kallestad with their Chinese EVs.
Source: Midttveit and Kallestad
Kjell Emil Kallestad never pictured himself in an electric vehicle. But when his partner traded in her diesel SUV for a battery-powered crossover last year, the 67-year-old machine operator in Straume, Norway, followed suit. In one sense the purchases by the residents of this tiny island village were nothing out of the ordinary in the country, where EVs have caught on faster than anyplace else in the world. But what’s unusual is where the two models, an MG ZS and an Xpeng G3, came from: Both were produced in China.
“It says ‘Made in China’ on almost everything,” says Kjersti Midttveit, Kallestad’s partner. “I was not afraid of that at all.”