The end is nigh for petrol and diesel cars as improvements to technology are making electric cars better and more affordable, a new report has concluded.

Amsterdam-based financial services group ING has predicted that electric cars will be cheaper to run that those with combustion engines by 2024, the Telegraaf reported on Thursday. The last petrol and diesel cars will roll off the production line in 2035.

The bank forecasts steep reductions in the price of electric cars combined with improved efficiency of battery packs. At the same time higher emissions standards for cars with combustion engines will make them far more expensive.

From 2028, an electric Volkswagen Golf with a driving radius of 500 km will be cheaper to run per kilometre than a similar car fuelled by petrol or diesel. When maintenance and the price of fuel and electricity are factored in, an electric car will be cheaper to run over 15,000 km than a fossil-fuel equivalent in 2024.

The rise of electric vehicles will be a challenge to the European car industry, ING said. European car makers are concentrating on developing efficient but complicated combustion engines, while relatively simple electric engines are bought in from third parties.

The bank said Asian and American battery and electric engine producers are further ahead and will try to carve out as large a slice of the electric car market as they can.

100,000 vehicles in NL

As of 31 December 2016, there were 113,636 highway legal light-duty plug-in electric vehicles registered in the Netherlands, consisting of 98,903 range-extended and plug-in hybrids, 13,105 pure electric cars, and 1,628 all-electric light utility vans.

When buses, trucks, motorcycles, quadricycles and tricycles are accounted for, the Dutch plug-in electric-drive fleet climbs to 115,193 units, according to Wikipedia.

The stock of light-duty plug-in electric vehicles registered in the Netherlands passed the 100,000 unit mark in November 2016. At the end of 2016, the Netherlands ranked as the second largest European plug-in country market and the fifth largest in the world.