Netherlands residents driving bigger, heavier cars
Netherlands residents are driving bigger and increasingly heavy cars. The increase in weight is mainly due to more electric cars on the road - electric vehicles’ batteries are much heavier than fuel cars, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported on Monday.
At the start of 2025, the average Dutch passenger car weighed 1,254 kilograms - 94 kilograms (+8.1%) more than at the start of 2015. Looking at the most recent years, the weight increase is even more visible. The average weight of a car built in 2024 is 1,554 kilograms, compared to 1,224 kilograms in 2016. That’s an increase of 26.9 percent.
“The fact that the average weight of new passenger cars is increasing is partly due to the increasing share of electric and plug-in hybrid cars,” CBS. “These plug-in cars are partly due to their battery, on average heavier than petrol cars.” For 2024 models, electric cars weighed an average of 1,875 kilograms and petrol cars an average of 1,217 kilograms.
The increase in average weight for all cars is mainly due to more plug-in cars on the roads. In 2016, 4.4 percent of the Dutch fleet were plug-in cars. Last year, that was 49.0 percent.
Passenger cars are also getting bigger. Cars from 2024 are on average 21 centimeters longer and 6 centimeters wider than cars from 2016, an increase of 5 and 3.6 percent, respectively. 2024 models are on average 441 centimeters long (420 cm in 2016) and 182 centimeters wide (176 cm in 2016).
The increasing weight and size of passenger cars is bad news for the Dutch infrastructure. Heavier cars mean more wear and tear on the roads, and bigger vehicles take up more space in scarce parking spots and on narrow roads.
