Electric vehicle drivers are often disadvantaged young people who receive social benefits

No, I was just kidding. Because a completely open study by CBS shows that the drivers of electric vehicles who are causing the drum roll are men between the ages of 40 and 60 with high incomes.

Of course they are, CBS! Haven’t you seen the prices for electric cars? What is even more striking is the fact that 46 percent of electric vehicles are still in private hands.

Electric cars and hybrids

But hey, now it’s time to pay attention, because if you read carefully you’ll see that CBS lumps electric cars and plug-in hybrids together. If you look at purely electric cars, only 33 percent are owned by private individuals.

At the beginning of 2023, there were around 330,200 electric cars and 181,000 plug-in hybrids in the Netherlands, according to CBS. Overall, this is 3.7 times more than in 2019.

Who are the EV drivers?

Who are the owners of these cars? Men. In all age groups, the probability of owning a plug-in car is more than twice as high as that of women. Men between the ages of 40 and 60 are most likely to drive an electric vehicle.

Half of the Dutch

At the beginning of 2021 (CBS apparently does not have any recent data), 47.4 percent of Dutch people aged 18 and over owned a car. In the same year, 68.0 percent of households had at least one car.

Income plays a role

The statistic that ownership of a (plug-in) car is lowest among people on welfare or student loans is quite surprising. Entrepreneurs, including self-employed people, most often own a car (77.6 percent).

The top 25 percent of households own no less than 62.7 percent of all plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. For the 25 percent lowest earners it is only 5.4 percent.

The fact that it is mainly the rich who go online is also evident in the municipalities with the highest proportion of electric vehicles: 5.8 percent in Rozendaal, 4.8 percent in Laren and finally 4.5 percent in Blaricum.