The sale of battery-powered electric cars increased by 136% to 3,945 in the first three months of 2018, motoring organisation RAI Vereniging reported on Monday.

The market for electric cars, so far, is miniscule, but the Netherlands is the world’s fifth-largest market for electric cars after China, the US, Japan and Norway, according to the International Energy Agency.

The percentage of cars on the road in the Netherlands crept up to 2.9% in the first quarter of this year from 1.4% in the year-earlier period. This is due largely to the availability of more electric car models in the middle sector, the RAI said.

The RAI expects 15,000  new electric cars will be sold in 2018, nearly double the 7,958 sold in 2017. Under the government’s Green Deal programme worked out with car sector organisations, half of new car sales in 2025 should be electric or hybrid.