The electric vehicle in Spain: taking the pulse of the electric car market

What is the future of the electric vehicle market in Spain? Today we delve into a market that has seen 177% growth so far this year.

This weekUsefulThe Spanish Association of Automobile and Truck Manufacturers (AEMPS) has published, through its website, sales figures for electric vehicles and hybrid cars in Spain so far in 2016. The figures show that electric vehicles have accumulated a177% sales growthcompared to the previous year. Thus, only in thefirst five months of the year,have been sold2,009 unitsof electric propulsion cars, compared to a total of 2,342 units sold in 2015.

But what about hybrid vehicles? If we look at vehicle sales datahybridsThose that use a mixed fuel and electric propulsion system, we found that have been sold11,172 unitsof this type, compared to the6,459 sold in 2015which implies a72.9% increasecompared to the figures from the previous year.

An upward trend in a predominantly combustion-based market

While it is true that the data reveals aclear upward trendWhat does this mean about thetotal salesof cars? Let’s see, during 2015, a total of 2,342 electric vehicle sales were recorded in Spain (a 54.5% increase compared to 2014) and 19,321 hybrid vehicles (a 28.5% increase compared to 2014) out of the total of1,034,232 unitsthat were sold during the past year,representingthe first one a brief0,22%of total sales and nearly a second2%.

This clarifies that, although the trend is upward, both electric and hybrid cars still have a long way to go before they are competitive, at least in sales, against combustion vehicles.

How are electric vehicle sales distributed in Spain?

If we analyze the graph of electric car registrations in 2016, published byUseful, we verified that it is inMadrid and Catalonia, with the66% of salestotals, where electric cars are more prevalent. These conditions may be due, among other factors, to the population size of these regions. It is noteworthy, however, that this is not the case in Andalusia, for example, where electric cars only account for 5.3% of total sales nationwide despite its population.

Ceuta and Melilla, La Rioja, Extremadura and Cantabria are the communities that are least interested in the sale of electric cars and only account for 2% of the total sales.

Regarding the hybrid market, we found that while the trend is repeated inMadrid and Catalonia, with a52% of the totalIn terms of sales, Andalusia, with 11.7%, is the third region that buys the most hybrid vehicles, despite its history with purely electric vehicles.

Source: ANFAC