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... there are already *two* charging points per unique electric car. ...

Maybe, but then there must be a lot of charging points in relatively inconvenient places. Also in that case why would e-laad be having to tell people that they no longer have the budget to put down any more?

... Paid for with taxpayer money. ...

Really? Stichting e-laad was set up by the power companies themselves. They say their budget dried up, but make no mention of subsidies. Even if the municipalities or the Dutch government were subsidizing a certain percentage of each charging point, it doesn't look like that's the reason why e-laad stopped rolling them out. If that were the case, then surely they would have said so. But even if you're right, there are worse things that the government can spend taxpayer money on (like bailing out crooked bankers).

... Nobody buys battery powered electric cars...

You overgeneralize. Just because you don't know anyone who wants one doesn't mean nobody does. The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs states that, as of August 2012, there were 1,686 completely electric cars driving around on Dutch roads. That's not nobody, but you could be right about the number of charging points. However, according to an estimate last year the Dutch Automobile Association (ANWB) expects that there will be 200,000 electric vehicles driving in the Netherlands by 2020.

... because they are heavy, unreliable, and are economically written off after only 5 years.

Heavy, yes (but getting lighter), unreliable, no. Nissan expects its batteries to retain 70% to 80% of their capacity after a decade of use and guarantees them for five. Chevrolet guarantee the Volt's batteries for eight years. That doesn't sound so bad to me. Other vehicle manufacturers offer similar values, because many of them buy their batteries from the same battery manufacturers.

IMO all of the plug-in battery electric cars currently available are either impractical due to their limited range, or too expensive (such as the Tesla Model S), or both. Yet, for myself I would still prefer a vehicle with batteries to one powered by hydrogen for a number of reasons.

First of all, read this article: 5 Concerns About Electric-Car Batteries. Its not long and addresses reliability, supply, the environment, recycling and actual carbon emissions.

Personally, I love the idea of being able to charge up my vehicle at home on green energy (even if it's just a little more green) for the lowest price possible. That will free me from my gasoline addiction, which I've come to hate not only because burning fossil fuel is bad for the environment, but also because it means paying regular visits to gas stations, always being dependent on a foreign product that sucks a tremendous amount of money out of the local economy, paying a ridiculous price for gasoline (at around $9.00 a gallon, gas prices in the Netherlands are the absolute highest in the world), and always paying more for my gasoline every year.

Regarding hydrogen, it looks like this technology has more drawbacks than advantages. Li-Ion batteries may be expensive, but hydrogen fuel cells make them look very affordable. Some companies have been promising much lower prices, but talk is cheap and any such units have yet to materialize. In the mean time, there are already battery electric vehicles on the road and more money is being spent every day to make those batteries lighter and more powerful. Moreover, I can only imagine paying

And to one-up you, here in the Netherlands this is standard practice. There are loops in front of all traffic lights. Multiple loops even, a small one right in front of the stop line and a long one before that.

The logic is set so that the light goes green, then stays green as long as the long loop is still covered by cars. Quite clever actually: if you stay close to each other the light will stay green untill the timer maximum expires. However, when the speed picks up, people cars will start to move further apart so usually its a dingus that doesn't pull up fast enought that leaves a gap. Eh presto, red light.

Other systems are also employed, including measuring speed, using these loops. For instance, you can watch traffic flow on most of our national roads on a website. This for instance, is the biggest and bussiest part. Click on the rectangle boxes on the sides of the picture to see other regions.

I would really like for them to alter it a bit to show traffic density as well, but alas.

By the way, over here the loops have to be sensitive enough to even detect motor-bikes. Most European (and Asian) cars are 'light' in metal content. You will therefore always be able to see the loops: they aren't sealed into the pavement, they are put in afterwards by cutting a slit into the surface, putting the wiring in and then sealing it again. A black rectangle remains.

All The Netherlands roads (main roads) already have this system, take a look:

Amsterdam

Before I leave my work I always check it!

Overview of The Netherlands

All The Netherlands roads (main roads) already have this system, take a look:

Amsterdam

Before I leave my work I always check it!

Overview of The Netherlands

Here in Holland many of the highways have these sensors in the road, that can tell traffic density. There are a number of websites that provide you with realtime traffic density data. See this picture for an example. This is a JPG which is recreated every 5 minutes or so.

Cheers

Costyn.

All The Netherlands roads (main roads) already have this system, take a look:

Amsterdam

Before I leave my work I always check it!

Overview of The Netherlands

All The Netherlands roads (main roads) already have this system, take a look:

Amsterdam

Before I leave my work I always check it!

Overview of The Netherlands

Why use cellphones. You could create loops in the road and detect traffic with that.

That is done at 50% of the highways in the netherlands and the result of the currect traffic is even visible by a web browser: current traffic