Share of EVs is increasing
Now that the registration figures for March are known, it is time for AutoWeek to take stock. What is the position of the Dutch car market after the first quarter of this year? It turns out: roughly one in three new passenger cars sold in the past quarter was an electric car. This and more is evident from figures that AutoWeek requested from Bovag.
In March, 37,119 new passenger cars were registered in the Netherlands, we recently wrote based on extensive figures from the Rai Association, Bovag and RDC. We discussed in detail the relationship between fuel types and the brands and models that won the most customers in March. The March figures bring the total number of new passenger cars registered in the Netherlands this year to 101,849 units. That was 4 percent more than in the same period last year. But how is that enormous fleet of almost 102,000 cars actually built up?
| Fuel type | Quantity Q1 2024 | % difference compared to Q1 2023 | Market share Q1 2024 | Market share Q1 2023 |
| Petrol | 26,323 | -26.2% | 25.8% | 36.4% |
| Diesel | 942 | -16.6% | 0.9% | 1.2% |
| LPG | 722 | +58.7% | 0.7% | 0.5% |
| Hybrid | 43,794 | +23.2% | 43% | 36.4% |
| Electric | 30,068 | +19.7% | 29.5% | 25.7% |
| Total | 101,849 | +4% | 100% | 100% |
The share of fully electric is increasing
Almost one in three new passenger cars registered in the first quarter of this year was fully electric. Of the almost 102,000 new cars registered in our country, 30,068 were electric. That is 4,954 more than in the same period last year. Electric cars took a market share of 29.5 percent. By comparison, electric cars accounted for a market share of 25.7 percent in the first three months of last year. The market share of EVs is larger than that of cars with a non-electrified petrol engine (25.9 percent). A share of hybrid cars – mainly with petrol engines – also grew from 36 to 43 percent. So there is a shift here. More than 26 percent fewer new petrol cars were sold without electrical assistance, while registrations of hybrids increased by more than 23 percent.
Although there appears to be sufficient demand for diesels on the used market, new diesel cars play a minuscule role in the margin. Their share of registrations decreased from 1.15 percent in the first quarter of last year to only 0.9 percent. With only 942 diesels sold, almost 17 percent fewer new cars with a self-igniter have been registered. However, considerably more new LPG cars were sold. In the first quarter of this year, no less than 58.7 percent more new cars were registered that require LPG, although this was a total of only 722 cars.
The total Dutch vehicle fleet now consists of 9,473,035 passenger cars. Of these, 490,820 are fully electric. 5.2 percent of all cars in the Netherlands are now EVs.
For the shape: most popular cars with diesel engines
What are those diesel cars that were registered this year? You can feel it coming: these are mainly commercial vehicles. The highest-ranked passenger car was… the Mercedes-Benz B-class! Of these, 34 units are still registered. We wouldn’t be surprised if most of them were dressed in military costumes. Two more diesel examples of the A-class were registered, as well as the Opel Corsa and Mokka.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl