In the coalition agreement of the Rutte IV cabinet, a whole package of measures is on the table that should benefit the climate. In any case, the cabinet itself still needs to improve when it comes to ‘greening’: only two of the 31 cars in the government’s fleet are fully electric.
The government’s fleet currently consists of four petrol cars (BMWs and Mercedes), five diesel cars from Mercedes-Benz and twenty plug-in hybrid BMW 7-series cars. Part of it is from before the facelift (740th/Le), the more recently added part is from after the facelift (745th/Le). This is according to reports from the General Newspaper, which inquired with the Ministry of Defense – which handles the contracts for the departments – about the cabinet’s fleet of vehicles. According to Defense, only two of the 29 ministers currently drive fully electric. However, it is not clear from the story with which cars.
The current workplace of many ministers.
In this way, the ministers and state secretaries certainly do not fulfill an exemplary role. Stientje van Veldhoven, the former State Secretary for Infrastructure and Water Management, wrote in 2020 that the government wanted to lead the way in making its own vehicle fleet more sustainable. In the same year, 20 percent of the entire 13,500-car fleet of the national government had to consist of electric vehicles. That target was not achieved at the time, but the cabinet is certainly not leading the way. The Ministry of Defense does report that the share of plug-in hybrids in the vehicle fleet has increased. In 2018, six ministers still drove a charging car, now there are twenty.
Turn things around
However, those plug-in hybrids do not fit within the government’s target of driving ‘completely emission-free’ by 2028. “The fleet will be made more sustainable in the coming years,” a Defense spokesperson told the aforementioned newspaper. It is not yet clear whether this also applies to the armored cars in which Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Dilan Yesilgöz, the Minister of Justice, are transported. “Technological developments in this area are moving fast,” concludes the Ministry of Defense.
Perhaps the Mercedes-Benz EQS or the upcoming BMW i7 are suitable options for the ministers. Which fully electric car would you advise the government? Let me know in the comments.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl