The Balunywa Blog: Does Holland Still Produce Cars?

Andrew Simons

Updated December 19

Studied at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences

Why did Holland never produce any great cars, etc., like Germany?

They did and still do.

The Netherlands used to produced its own car brand, but also foreign car brands.

DAF has been producing automobiles since the 1950s. With an automatic gearbox it was also far ahead of its time.

Later DAF was taken over by Volvo.

DAF now only builds trucks.[1]

The new electric DAF, with a range of 200 kilometers.

However, the old DAF automobile factories continued to produce cars, but foreign car brands. And the factory name was changed to NEDCAR.[2]NEDCAR is an independent car manufacturer that temporarily produces a certain car brand for a number of years.

The following cars were produced in the NEDCAR factory.

The current models from NEDCAR.

What makes NEDCAR special is that it can produce different car brands in one production line. However, due to the current bad economic conditions, BMW recently decided to stop the production of cars at NEDCAR in 2023.

The Netherlands still builds hand-built special cars.

Donkervoort[3]

Donkervoort has been participating in the 24-hour race of Le Mans for decades. Occasionally they have also won once the race.

Spyker[4]

Spyker once even competed in Formula One. It also took over the bankrupt Swedish Saab in 2010. However, Spyker's wealthy owner took too many risks. Partly due to mismanagement, the adventures in Formula One and the takeover of the Swedish Saab were a fiasco.

The Lightyear One[5]

The Lightyear One is a long-range solar electric vehicle.

The car is developed by former students of the Delft University of Technology. The students were part of the Nuna Team and Cars. The Nuna Team participated in the World Solar Challenge. A 3022 km biennial road race across the Australian Outback, from Darwin, Northern Territory, to Adelaide, South Australia.[6]

Since 2001 the World Solar Challenge was won by the Nuna Team seven times out of ten challenges. [7]

The Lightyear One was co-created by the university students in collaboration with former employees from the automotive industry. For example, the current Lightyear's CCO worked as a Senior Director at Tesla.

With BMW leaving, NEDCAR has offered to build the Lightyear One. The Lightyear is currently being assembled in Helmond, a few kilometers from the NEDCAR factories.[8]