The takeoff of sales of electric cars in Spain will have to wait. The 2023 fiscal year closed with 51,614 units delivered, which, although they represent an increase of 33.05% compared to the previous year, only represent 5.4% of total registrations. This percentage, although it reflects significant growth, is positioned as one of the lowest in Europe, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA).
The figures provided by ACEA, which the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) publishes on its website, reflect the slow progress of electromobility in Spain. Data on the weight of electric cars in the automobile market of all European Union countries, in addition to the United Kingdom, Iceland, Switzerland and Norway, place our country at the bottom of the list. During 2023, Spain ranked 23 out of 31, far from its Portuguese neighbors (13th place) and French (15th).
Sales of electric cars in Portugal (18.2%) tripled those of Spain in 2023 and doubled those of Romania (10.6%). Among Western countries, only Italy (4.2%) has a sales percentage as poor as Spain.
On the other hand, the Nordic countries are the ones with the highest percentage of new electric cars. All of them exceed 33% of car sales, highlights the OCU, which places special emphasis on Norway, where four out of every five new cars are electric.
The consumer defense organization reiterates that the shortage of public chargers and the pending improvements to make the network more operational are the main causes slowing down the larger-scale introduction of the electric car in Spain.
It also highlights the high price of electric cars – around 20% more than a similar combustion engine model -, the price of electricity and the impossibility of plugging the car into a home charger. More than 60% of homes do not have their own parking space.
Sales of plug-in hybrid cars in Spain are somewhat better than those of pure electric cars. However, they are not enough to surpass the middle zone of the ranking with a sales share in 2023 of 6.5%, still very far from countries such as Sweden (21.1%), Belgium (21%) and Finland (20. 7%) which are the European territories where this technology is most successful.
The evolution of the number of sales in recent years reflects a sustained decline in plug-in hybrid cars at the expense of the growth of fully electric models.
In our country, only 12 out of every 100 new cars sold are plug-in, whether they have hybrid or 100% electric motors. On the other hand, in Iceland, Sweden and Finland, plug-ins represent more than half of sales and in neighboring Portugal, almost 1 in 3.