Diesel and hybrid vehicles growing in favour
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss drivers registered 5.4 million motor vehicles in 2010, up 42 percent compared to the number on roads in 1990.
Surprisingly, given the additions to the pool of cars, the average age of a Swiss car is 8.2 years and slowly rising.
The number of cars increased to 4.1 million last year from 4 million in 2009, the year the country crossed the line to having more than one car for every two people, despite the country’s reputation for having the densest public transport system in the world.
It was also the year that saw the smallest increase, 0.5 percent, due to the global economic slowdown.
Motorcycles and cars with diesel and hybrid engines have become more popular, the figures published by the Federal Statistical Office Monday 14 February show. Diesel cars made up 18 percent of all cars registered iun Switzerland30 September 2010, the day the auto census was taken.
The most dramatic change has been the number of scooters driven in Switzerland, which increased 20-fold in 20 years. They now account for 37 percent of all motorcycles registered.
Motorcycles overall more than doubled their numbers, 118 percent, during the period.
Corina Casanova, Swiss chancellor
Lucerne welcomes overseas Swiss for the weekend
Geneva and Lucerne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss federal chancellor, Corina Casanova, told delegates to the annual meeting of the Swiss Abroad Organization in Lucerne that they will all be able to vote electronically by 2015, using a system that will gradually be extended to cover voters registered in all cantons. Switzerland thus becomes a pioneer, with Estonia, of e-voting outside the country. Swiss overseas citizens registered in Geneva will be the first to test the new system, in November 2009: Geneva, along with Neuchatel and Zurich, have been testing e-voting since 2003.
