Electric cars prices and distance they can travel put brake on sales


Although 37% of Dutch consumers are interested in driving an electric car, only 4% plan to buy one within the next two years, according to new research by motoring organisation ANWB. 'There has been no increase in interest in driving an electric car,' ANWB director Frits van Bruggen told the Telegraaf. 'People think electric cars are good for the environment but are still put off by the price. Most people don't have the money to buy one.' In addition, electric cars cost more to use. The ANWB calculates an electric car costs 6% more per kilometre than one powered by petrol. The increase in distances that electric cars can drive has gone up, but electric cars costing less than €50,000 still have a maximum radius of some 270 kilometres 'and that is not enough', Van Bruggen said. The government is considering subsidising the cost of buying an electric car by up to €6,000 by 2021 as part of its plans to phase out petrol cars altogether.  More >

The Hague to bid for Grand Départ

The Hague is going to make a serious attempt to host the start of the Tour de France cycle race in 2020, the AD reported on Wednesday. The Hague has the title of European city of sport in 2020 and officials consider staging the Grand Départ would fit in with the plans perfectly. The official campaign to win the race will start on January 30, and the ambition to host the start of one of the three big European cycle races in The Hague was also included in the city's coalition agreement, the AD points out. 'It would also have a major economic impact on the city and put The Hague on the map,' city alderman Richard de Mos said. Rotterdam is also interested in holding the Grand Départ and has registered with the Tour de France organisers as potential hosts in 2023, 2024 and 2025, local media said. Utrecht staged the Grand Départ in 2015, the sixth time the Tour, which is hugely popular in the Netherlands, began in a Dutch city. Amsterdam hosted the first non-French Grand Départ in 1954. The capital was followed by Scheveningen (1973), Leiden (1978), Den Bosch (1996) and Rotterdam (2010)  More >

CDA, CU criticise energy bill rise

Two of the four coalition parties say that consumers should not be faced with hefty bills for the transition to a gas-free economy. The CDA and ChristenUnie say people are already being faced with large rises in their energy bills and there are fears that this might put people off working for a better climate, broadcaster NOS reported on Wednesday. 'It is not so easy to say, "well, let us make people pay more for gas to get them behind the task of boosting sustainability",' CDA leader Sybrand Buma told the broadcaster. Gert-Jan Segers, who leads ChristenUnie, also believes consumers should be protected against high price rises, NOS said. Comparison websites suggest energy bills are going up by an average of between €200 and €312 next year but junior economic affairs minister Mona de Keijzer has criticised their calculations, saying they are based on usage figures which are too high. DutchNews.nl has spoke to several people, all of whom report rises in the region of €30 a month. All the 2019 prices will be published in January, when a more accurate calculation of the impact can be made. The price of gas and electricity has been pushed up by higher levies on CO2 emissions and the accelerated scaling back of gas extraction in Groningen, as well as a €50 rise in the amount households contribute towards sustainable energy subsidies (ODE).  More >

No-deal legislation plan undemocratic: MPs

The Dutch cabinet's emergency legislation which it will enact if Britain crashes out of the EU without a deal gives the cabinet uncontrollable powers, most parties in parliament say. The legislation gives a minister the right to change or withdraw laws without parliamentary approval and without being put out to consultation to the Council of State. 'If something has to be sorted out quickly, parliament can meet on Saturday and it can be implemented on Monday,' CDA parliamentarian Pieter Omtzigt told current affairs show Nieuwsuur.  'This emergency legislation has fewer guarantees than a calling for a state of emergency.' The cabinet has to change the proposed legislation, said D66 MP Kees Verhoeven. 'Brexit might be a unique situation but that does not mean you can bypass parliament. Haste and panic are the wrong reflexes.' And GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver has said the legislation 'is more appropriate to a dictatorship than a democracy'. However, VVD parliamentary party leader Klaas Dijkhoff said the concern is premature. 'This emergency law cannot come into effect without parliament,' he said. 'We need to strike a balance between proper preparation and being able to act in a targeted way. But we cannot predict everything, and sometimes parliament will have to lower its voice, if the situation demands it.' No deal Foreign affairs minister Stef Blok sent the emergency powers legislation to parliament last month as part of the preparations for a no-deal Brexit, which pundits say is becoming increasingly likely. He said at the time that the aim is to make sure that people can still travel to the UK without too many problems, and to deal with practical matters, such as the legality of a British driving licence in the Netherlands. 'The law gives the government the option to take emergency measures,' Blok said. 'Brexit is a completely new situation and a no deal Brexit may have far reaching consequences.' He will discuss the draft legislation with MPs in January.  More >

DNA test sees man jailed for 1992 murder

A gavel in a courtroom. A 47-year-old man from Zaandam has been jailed for 20 years for killing a 19-year-old girl and dumping her body in a pond in 1992. Judges in Alkmaar found Hüseyin A guilty of killing Milica van Doorn. He was identified following a mass dna test in the region last year. A postmortem examination revealed Milica had been raped and stabbed to death and DNA samples indicated that the killer was almost certainly a man of Turkish origin. Last year police asked 133 men from Zaandam’s Turkish community to volunteer their DNA for comparison, 126 of whom agreed. Several could not be traced and two refused. Hüseyin A is one of the two men who refused to submit to the voluntary testing. He was identified because the tests showed he was related to one of the men who came forward. This is the third high profile cold case to have produced a breakthrough following mass dna testing. In 2013, a Frisian farmer who admitted murdering a 16-year-old schoolgirl in 1999 was jailed for 18 years by a court in Leeuwarden. And a mass dna test in Limburg has led to the arrest this year of a suspect in the hunt for the killer of 11-year-old Nicky Verstappen in 1998.  More >

PC Hooft prize for Bitter Herbs author

The Netherlands’ most prestigious literary prize PC Hooftprijs has been awarded to 98 year-old author Marga Minco. Minco, who is Jewish, is most famous for her bestselling book Het Bittere Kruid  (bitter herbs, 1957)) in which she evokes the war years in 22 short stories. The author was in her early twenties when she escaped from being transported to a concentration camp by simply walking out of the house when ‘the men in raincoats’ came to take the family away. Her father asked her to get the coats and Minco kept running until she found herself ‘alone in a deserted city’. She spent the rest of the war in hiding and under an assumed name. None of her family made it back from the camps and the war was to remain the dominant theme in her writing making her, the jury said, ‘the Dutch voice of European war time literature’.  More >

Senate backs new commercial court

Senators on Tuesday backed plans to establish an international commercial court in the Netherlands, which will specialize in complex international trade disputes. The new tribunal is being set up because of demand for a specialised, English language tribunal, legal experts say. The Netherlands Commercial Court will have two chambers, one based at Amsterdam district court and one at the court of appeal on the IJ waterfront. Justice minister Sander Dekker told senators during their debate on the plans last week that companies which currently take legal action in English only have the choice of arbitration or to go to London. 'Both options are somewhat expensive,' he said.   More >

Arrests as police bust cockfighting centre

Dutch police on Tuesday raided what they said was a centre for training fighting cocks, seizing 51 birds and arresting two people, following a tip-off. The building in a rural part of Bodegraven, between Leiden and Utrecht, included a closed wheel which was used to train the hens and pens where the birds lived. Local broadcaster Omroep West also showed a photograph of a bucket containing dead birds. Cock fighting is illegal in the Netherlands but the hens may have been destined for France, where cock fighting is legal in a few places, the broadcaster quoted the police as saying. Op een perceel aan de #BurgemeesterKremerweg in #Bodegraven zijn meerdere hanen aangetroffen. Een 31 jarige man uit #Zwammerdam en een 38 jarige man uit Bodegraven zijn aangehouden op verdenking van het houden van verboden #hanengevechten meer info volgt pic.twitter.com/LfwBsPN7xr — Politie Den Haag (@POL_DenHaag) December 11, 2018 The two men arrested are aged 31 and 38 and come from Zwammerdam and Bodegraven.  More >

politics

society

business

sport

education

health

Tech & Media

housing

jobs