Electric cars in Netherlands rapidly increasing; 1 in 5 cars fully or partly electric

At the start of this year, there were over 2 million fully electric, hybrid, or plug-in hybrid cars in the Netherlands, nearly a quarter more than a year earlier. Over one in five passenger cars are now fully or partly electric, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported on Friday.

In early 2026, the Netherlands counted 9.4 million passenger cars, nearly 2 percent more than a year earlier. “This growth is entirely attributable to cars with an electric motor,” CBS said.

Hybrid cars have an electric motor and a combustion engine, but no plug to charge a battery. Plug-in hybrids have a combustion engine and an electric motor with a battery that you can plug in to charge. The number of plug-in hybrids has grown the most in the past year (+40%). The number of fully electric passenger cars increased by 22 percent to nearly 700,000.

Hybrid cars are the most common electric car in the Netherlands, with 800,000 such vehicles on Dutch roads. That number increased by 19 percent compared to January last year, and nearly quadrupled compared to 2019.

In 2018, just over 11 percent of all new passenger cars sold had an electric motor. Last year, that was 86 percent. At the same time, the share of petrol cars has dropped from 75 to 13 percent. “Diesel cars have not been popular for several years; only 1 percent of all new cars sold run on diesel.”

In recent weeks, the interest in electric cars has been higher than ever as fuel prices rose due to the war in Iran. Second-hand electric cars, in particular, are suddenly in high demand, the automotive trade association Bovag reported.

Fully electric vehicles are often still relatively expensive. It is therefore unsurprising that the municipalities with the highest number of electric cars, relevant to the number of inhabitants, are all affluent: Rozendaal, Blaricum, Laren in Noord-Holland, and Bloemendaal. In these municipalities, car owners typically also have their own driveways where they can charge their cars with their own charging station, which is often cheaper than using a public charging station.

The municipalities with the fewest electric cars per 1,000 inhabitants are Schiermonnikoog, Amsterdam, Vlieland, and Groningen.