Autocar confidential: No way like Norway, VW's EV democracy and more

In this week's round-up of automotive gossip we hear why Ford thinks Norway is leading the way for EV adoption, why the Arteon eHybrid holds the key to electrifying all VW's models and more.

The Norway to go for EVs

Ford of Britain's boss has cited Norway as an example of how the adoption of EVs can be encouraged. Graham Hoare said: “The Norway experience since 1990 has seen significant activities to build confidence with customers, to create infrastructure and to support customer decisions that ultimately have enabled that economy to fully adopt electrification, and plug-ins and fully electric vehicles are now about 70% of the marketplace. But really it has taken 30 years, and it’s that consistency of purpose that has been so essential.”

VW's electric democracy

The new Arteon eHybrid will play a key role in Volkswagen’s plans to electrify all its models from the Volkswagen Golf upwards, unlike previous GTE variants. “We want to democratise our electrified powertrains, so we’ve made it available on volume trims,” marketing boss Hendrik Muth said.

Launch window closed

Big launch events for new cars are “probably” over, according to Citroën’s marketing boss. The firm recently launched its new C4 online, with some 2600 journalists asking questions by rapidly typing them into a box and hoping they would be read out in a 20-minute session. Arnaud Belloni said: “We have to think about the benefits: we can reach more people online and with no need for travel.”