The Spanish government says it wants to have 5 million electric vehicles on the country’s roads by 2030, which T&E says can only be achieved with a tax reform.
T&E and its Spanish member organisation ECODES have proposed a set of tax reforms designed to accelerate the transition to electric mobility:
As the current system is based on obsolete tables, six out of 10 cars sold in Spain are exempt from the registration tax despite emitting up to 120 grams of CO₂ per km. This means that vehicles with real-life emissions of up to 35% more than declared levels are allowed to get tax exemptions. In order to guide consumers towards the purchase of zero-emission vehicles, a redesign of tax rates is needed so exemptions are applied only to the registration of cars with zero emissions.
The current system allows fossil fueled vehicles (hybrids running on petrol or diesel, and gas vehicles) to have a bonus identical to that of zero emission vehicles. It is therefore recommended to update the design of the road tax to have it based on emissions with more local impact, such as NOx and PM emissions.
Spain and governments across Europe should follow the example of the Netherlands and the UK and reform the benefit-in-kind taxation of company cars to steer the market more forcefully towards zero-emission cars, electric carsharing, and electrifying Light Commercial Vehicles for urban delivery systems.
Spain needs to (1) develop a national plan for fast and ultra-fast charging infrastructure (more than 100 kW) for the highways network, simplifying the administrative process for the installation and commissioning of charging stations; (2) promote the installation of charging points at companies, adding incentives to ensure they are used, and (3) create charging hubs in urban areas, targeting mainly zero-emissions passenger transport services, urban distribution of goods, last mile delivery, and carsharing services.
The purchase subsidy system for the zero emission and low emission vehicles must be implemented within a “bonus-malus” scheme where a penalty is applied to the most polluting vehicles at the time of registration to internalise environmental costs, according to their level of CO2 emissions, and to apply the ‘polluter pays’ principle.
Spain needs to improve the car labeling system, since it currently includes CNG vehicles and large PHEV SUVs within categories 0 and ECO, when the actual emissions of those vehicles are higher than those of smaller vehicles which get labels C or B under the current system.
