More than one million Volkswagens in the Netherlands
On January 1 this year, the Dutch fleet consisted of no less than 9.2 million cars. More than one in ten of these is a Volkswagen. This and more is evident from an analysis by AutoWeek of figures from RDC and Rai Association.
At the beginning of the month you can read in detail on AutoWeek.nl about the number of new passenger cars registered in the Netherlands in the previous month. We discuss which brands have registered the most new cars, which model has registered the most copies and also look at what the most popular brands and models are in the electrical field. In addition, we regularly look in detail at how the current year is doing so far. But what does the Dutch fleet actually look like? We will also map that out for you. For example, we recently wrote that the fleet will have grown by 90,000 passenger cars between 2022 and 2023, that ‘only’ 4 percent of the fleet is fully electric and that the number of cars with a manual gearbox in our country is rapidly decreasing. Now we take a closer look at which brands have the most cars in the Netherlands. The absolute number one is probably no surprise.
| Brand | Number | Percentage of total fleet | Most common model | |
| 1 | Volkswagen | 1,074,011 | 11.6% | Polo (275,057 pieces) |
| 2 | Opel | 663,424 | 7.2% | Corsa (193,715 units) |
| 3 | Toyota | 652,223 | 7.1% | Yaris (179,571 units) |
| 4 | Peugeot | 647,326 | 7% | 107 (104,816 units) |
| 5 | Renault | 612,723 | 6.6% | Clio (167,578 units) |
| 6 | Ford | 595,735 | 6.5% | Fiesta (174,645 units) |
| 7 | BMW | 393,033 | 4.3% | 3 series (111,063 units) |
| 8 | Lemon | 380,402 | 4.1% | C1 (116,545 units) |
| 9 | Mercedes Benz | 375,019 | 4.1% | C class (72,407 units) |
| 10 | Kia | 365,232 | 3.955678 | Picanto (139,657 units) |
You probably already felt it coming, but indeed: Volkswagen is the brand with the most cars in our country. Of the 9,233,107 cars in the Dutch fleet on January 1, 2023, no fewer than 1,074,011 were Volkswagens. This means that 11.6 percent of all cars driving in the Netherlands bear a Volkswagen logo. 275,057 of these are a Polo, 266,682 are a Golf. This means that 5.9 percent of all cars in the Netherlands are Golf or Polo. Special.
No other car brand has more than a million units on the road in our country. In second place we find – at a huge distance – Opel. The Dutch passenger car fleet consists of 663,424 Opel cars. This means that almost 7.2 percent of the Dutch fleet is an Opel. Similar numbers – and percentages – can be found in numbers four (Toyota) and five (Peugeot). There are still 652,223 Toyota cars registered in the Netherlands, making the brand good for almost 7.1 percent of the Dutch vehicle fleet. Of all passenger cars in the Netherlands, 7 percent are Peugeots (647,326 units).
Interesting facts: 0.71 percent of the Dutch vehicle fleet consisted of Teslas at the beginning of this year (65,194 units). With the enormous number of Tesla Model Ys registered this year, next year will certainly yield very different figures. Also interesting: despite the fact that it withdrew from Europe and therefore also from the Netherlands almost eleven years ago, there are still more Daihatsu cars (49,541 units, 0.54 percent) on the road than Alfa Romeo (44,846 units), Land Rover ( 37,055 units), Saab (32,472 units), Lexus (24,718 units), Jaguar (24,350 units), Subaru (22,775 units) and Smart (20,426 units). With more than 21,000 units, the Cuore is still the most common Daihatsu in the Netherlands.
Super stuff
If we look at the absolute ‘elite brands’, we find Porsche narrowly behind Alfa Romeo with 44,565 cars in the Netherlands. In addition, there are 3,005 Ferraris in the Netherlands, 2,524 Maseratis, 2,205 Bentleys, 1,531 Aston Martins, 1,143 Rolls-Royces, 999 Lotuses, 589 Lamborghinis and 191 McLarens.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl