Passenger car use on the rise in Netherlands

Passenger car use is on the rise in the Netherlands, with drivers using the vehicles to travel a record 121.4 billion kilometers in 2018. Electric vehicles accounted for just 0.5 percent of the total, with petrol vehicles used the most followed by diesel then LPG models, said national data office Statistics Netherlands (CBS).

There were twice as many all-electric vehicles on the roadways in 2018 compared to a year earlier, which accounted for a doubling of that category’s driving distance.

Diesel car use fell for the third straight year, down 2.5 percent to 34.3 billion kilometers. Cars running on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) were used for 2.1 billion kilometers, an 11 percent drop in just a year.

Petrol-powered cars accounted for 78.4 billion kilometers.

The 2018 total of 121.4 billion kilometers represents a 1.2-percent increase over 2017 figures. That translates to over 1.4-billion extra kilometers of road use.

There was a sharp 24-percent increase in petrol-fueled company car driving distance. In total, company cars were responsible for 22 percent of the 121.4 billion kilometers, or 26.1 billion kilometers, CBS said. That represents a four-percent increase over 2017 totals, and about three percent higher than a decade ago.

Private cars were driven just 0.4 percent more than in 2017. Together, the cars covered about 95.3 billion kilometers, nine percent higher than in 2008.