Earlier this month, a Bloomberg report indicated that the Netherlands has the fastest growing electric vehicle charging network in the world.
It’s also one of the top ranking nations when it comes to the number of EVs on the road per capita, but what is it that they’re all driving? I bet you can’t guess the top five most popular EVs in the low-lying country for last month.
[Read: Key battery supplier to EV makers is developing cobalt and nickel free batteries]
According to figures compiled by Clean Technica, the most popular EV in the Netherlands in July was the South Korean Kia Niro EV. Figures show that 644 Niros were sold last month.
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Following the Niro, as second most popular EV last month, is the MG ZS SUV, which reportedly sold 501 units. In third place, was the VW e-Golf which sold 488 units. The Volvo XC40 PHEV and Hyundai Kona EV took 4th and 5th spot, having sold 402 and 363 units respectively.
Tesla only just scraped into the top 20, with its Model 3 selling 31 units. What’s perhaps more surprising, is that the seven-year-old BMW i3 bested the Tesla and sold 41 units.
Though, it’s worth noting that this was just a low sales month for Tesla and the Model 3 is still one of the most popular EVs in the country.
What’s more, the Dutch government released a new batch of subsidies to support new EV buyers at the start of July. These were subsequently used up in under 10 days, as the country went crazy for new cars.
The Tesla Model 3, which retails from €48,980 in the Netherlands, is about €4,000 over the threshold for the latest subsidy, which goes some way to explain why more affordable EVs proved so popular last month.
However, over the course of the year, from January through to July, the Model 3 is still one of the most popular vehicles in the country having sold 2,721 units this year. But the strong July sales for the Kia Niro means that it takes the top spot as the Netherlands’ best-selling EV this year, having sold 2,942 units year to date.
With new exciting EVs still yet to hit the roads, like the Polestar 2 (I would say that, though) and the Volkswagen ID.3, we can be sure that we’ll see new names make the top 20 before the year is out.
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