Norway's Consumer Purchase Act (forbrukerkjøpsloven) § 27 requires a buyer to notify the seller of a defect within a reasonable time after discovering it — never less than 2 months from discovery — and sets an outer deadline for that claim (reklamasjon): 2 years after delivery for ordinary goods, extended to 5 years if the item is meant, under normal use, to last considerably longer. Cars are treated industry-wide in Norway as qualifying for the 5-year limb. Miss the deadline and the right to claim is generally lost, unless the seller acted with gross negligence or bad faith.
A separate rule that gets confused with this one
§ 18 sets up a different mechanism: a defect appearing within 2 years of delivery is presumed to have existed at delivery already, unless the seller proves otherwise — a reversed burden of proof. That 2-year presumption window and § 27's 5-year outer claim deadline are two distinct rules; a lot of secondary coverage blurs them, but one governs who has to prove what, and the other is the actual deadline to bring a claim at all.
Who's liable: the seller, not the manufacturer
A consumer's claim runs against "the seller" — the Norwegian dealer they contracted with — not an overseas manufacturer. § 35 lets a consumer claim directly against an earlier commercial link (e.g. the national importer) or a repairer under certain conditions, but only to the extent the seller itself could have made that same claim — it doesn't let a consumer reach past the local chain to sue a foreign manufacturer with no commercial presence in Norway. In practice, liability always has to land on a Norwegian commercial entity somewhere in the chain. This is separate from the Product Liability Act, which covers injury and property damage, not defect remedies — the two shouldn't be conflated.
Statutory rights versus a manufacturer's own warranty
§ 18a allows a seller or manufacturer to voluntarily offer broader or longer protection (garanti) than the law requires, but no such warranty can reduce what the law already guarantees. The two are layered, not substitutes — a consumer can invoke whichever is more favorable. A commonly advertised battery warranty (say, 8 years or 160,000 km, with capacity held above some percentage of original) is a voluntary manufacturer commitment, not a legal mandate; once the statutory 5-year window closes, a battery claim depends entirely on the manufacturer's own warranty terms, not consumer law.
No EV-specific rules
Norwegian law treats EVs and combustion cars identically here — there's no separate "battery law." One 2024 amendment is especially relevant to EVs, though: goods with digital elements, cars included, now carry a statutory right to at least 5 years of software and security updates, which matters for EVs that depend on OTA updates for charging, battery management and infotainment.
What this means for a new entrant
Type approval itself requires the manufacturer or its "representative" to apply to the Norwegian Public Roads Administration — in practice, a Norwegian or EEA-based entity has to stand behind the car from the approval stage onward. Forbrukerrådet and NAF's public advice to consumers evaluating a new brand is to look at its global sales volume, the importer's financial strength, and the size of its service network — because even though the 5-year statutory right survives an importer's exit on paper, it becomes very hard to actually use. For a brand entering Norway, a financially solid, long-term-committed local partner is itself part of what makes a warranty credible.
Statute text (Norwegian): forbrukerkjøpsloven § 27, § 18a; practical guidance: Motor.no's interview with Forbrukerrådet and NAF.