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 grown 177% so far this year

This week Anfac (Spanish Association of Automobile and Truck Manufacturers) has published, through its website, the sales data for electric vehicles in Spain, as well as hybrid cars, so far in 2016. The figures show that electric vehicles have accumulated 177% growth in sales compared to the previous year. Thus, in the first five months of the year alone, 2,009 units of electric-powered cars have been sold, compared to the total of 2,342 units sold in 2015.

But what about hybrid vehicles? If we review the sales data for hybrid vehicles, those that use a mixed propulsion of fuel and electricity, we find that 11,172 units of this type have been sold, compared to the 6,459 sold in 2015, which represents an increase of 72.9% compared to the figures from the previous year.

An upward trend compared to a predominantly combustion market

While it is true that the data show a clear upward trend, what does this mean for total car sales? Let’s see, during 2015, a total of 2,342 electric vehicle sales were made in Spain (54.5% increase compared to 2014) and 19,321 hybrid vehicles (28.5% increase compared to 2014) out of the total of 1,034,232 units sold during the last year, the former representing a mere 0.22% of total sales and the latter approaching 2%.

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

How are How are electric vehicle sales distributed in Spain?

If we analyze the graph of electric car registrations in 2016, published by Anfac, we see that it is in Madrid and Catalonia, with 66% of total sales, where the electric car is most present. Conditions that may be due to, among other factors, the population of these communities. Although it is representative that, for example, in Andalusia this is not the case, and that it only represents 5.3% of sales in the entire state 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 when all sales are added together.

As for the hybrid market, we see that although the trend is repeated in Madrid and Catalonia, with 52% of total sales, is Andalusia, with 11.7%, the third community that buys the most hybrid vehicles, despite its history with purely electric vehicles.

Source: ANFAC