Import of electric cars increased sharply

The Dutch fleet does not only consist of cars that have been sold new here. After all, quite a few used passenger cars are exported every year, but also brought to the Netherlands. Last year, a total of 304,195 passenger cars were shipped abroad from the Netherlands, according to figures from Statistics Netherlands. That was 2 percent less in 2021. The import of passenger cars has also decreased compared to 2021. In 2022, 249,000 passenger cars will be brought to the Netherlands. That was 15 percent (44,500 units) less than in 2021. This decrease compared to 2021 is probably related to problems that importers had with the delivery of new cars. If we look at the pre-corona year 2019, the export of passenger cars increased by a modest one percent last year, while the import of cars increased by a considerable 11 percent.

Especially young cars popular

Young cars are mainly imported from abroad. Of the 249,000 cars imported last year, 92 percent were less than ten years old, and 57 percent were even less than five years old. Only 3 percent of imported cars were twenty years old or older and an almost similarly small percentage of 4 percent were between fifteen and twenty years old.

Just under 8 percent of all passenger cars imported in 2022 had a fully electric powertrain. Last year, 18,528 electric cars were imported. That was almost seven times as many as in 2019 (2,787 pieces). 23,532 of all cars imported last year had a plug-in hybrid powertrain.

The majority of the imported cars simply had a petrol engine. 64 percent (159,001 units) of all passenger cars brought to the Netherlands last year had a petrol engine. It is clear that the diesel car has fallen out of favour. Last year, 21,865 cars with diesel engines were brought to the Netherlands, 40 percent less than in 2019.

Export

And what about exports? Of the 304,195 cars that were exported, about 5 percent (about 14,000 units) had an electric, hybrid or plug-in hybrid powertrain. Remarkably, the export of plug-in hybrids decreased compared to 2019, while more electric cars were exported. In 2022, 4,540 EVs were shipped abroad from the Netherlands. In 2019 there were 1,373. Plug-in exports decreased by 59 percent to 3,558 units in the same period. The majority (157,270 units) of the cars exported last year had a petrol engine. 42 percent (127,578 units) had a diesel engine. In 2019, petrol cars accounted for a share of 47 percent of exports (diesel: 45 percent).