Policies around the world are directed towards sustainable mobility where combustion engines, as governed in the EU, already have an expiration date. Here, electrified vehicles are called to take the reins and establish themselves as the main alternative. However, sales of the electricity market in Spain are at the bottom of Europe and are growing at an insufficient rate to achieve the path of decarbonization.
Sales of electrified vehicles (electric and plug-in hybrids, including passenger cars, quadricycles, commercial and industrial vehicles, and buses) increased by 19.1% in 2022 to reach 84,645 units sold compared to the previous year. However, despite the annual improvement, the electrified market continues to have a weak weight (8.8%) in the global computation of sales by propulsion systems.
Sales of electrified cars are ‘lagging behind’ to meet the goal of five million electrified vehicles that the Government wants to see circulating on Spanish streets in 2030. This is clear from the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC) or Monclodesa to comply with the objectives of the European Union in the framework of energy and climate policy.
Sales last year have been almost 30% below the rate necessary to achieve the goal set by the Executive, which would have sold 120,000 electrified units throughout the year, as calculated by the Anfac car employers’ association. In fact, sales in the electrified market would need more than four years to equal the sales that gasoline vehicles have had this year (346,251 units) and more than three to equip diesel vehicles (270,915 units).
From another perspective, if we put together the sales of all zero and low emission vehicles (electrified, hybrid and gas), their registrations grew by 10% in the year, with 344,824 units sold. This class of vehicles represents 35.84% of the market, which is distanced from the 28.16% that diesel occupies, and is close to giving the ‘sorpasso’ to gasoline, which continues to lead the car park with 36% about the sales.
At the tail of Europe
The relevance of the electricity sector in the Spanish automobile market is even less when compared to that of other European countries such as Germany, where the market share of electrified passenger cars has been 26.2%, the United Kingdom, whose weight over sales has been 20.7% or France, where they have represented 20.6% of total sales.
The automobile market has left behind a gray year, where the conflict in Ukraine, the increase in energy costs and inflation, as well as the persistent problems in global supply chains, have caused a decrease in registrations of 5.4 % in Spain, in relation to the previous year, until it was reduced to 813,396 units, as shown in the data published by the manufacturers’ associations Anfac and the distributors’ associations Faconauto and Ganvam.
