The Industry & Energy Transition Index: Spain

Electric vehicle sales

Progress in terms of increasing share of EV sales (EVs % share of total vehicles sold)

To reach 100 percent electric vehicle sales by 2030, Spain must accelerate its current adoption rates. It currently lags the EU average by ten percentage points (12 percent in Spain compared to 22 percent in the European Union in 2023). Countries such as Finland, Norway, and Sweden have already crossed the 50 percent mark.

This slow adoption is also related with the ineffective implementation of incentive programs, particularly the MOVES III program, which offers up to €7,0001 per EV and suffers from disbursement delays to buyers of up to three years.

Although the expansion of the charging infrastructure in Spain is lagging the national targets, the number of charging stations per EV is ahead of the EU average (88 chargers per 1,000 EVs in Spain compared to 75 on average in the European Union).

Slow electric vehicle adoption is lagging behind European Union averages, threatening the 2030 car parc ambition.
Indicator definition
Share of battery electric vehicles (BEV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) sold as a percentage of all new vehicles sold.
Progress assessment
The most recent data point is 12 percent of EV sales as share of vehicle sales in 2023, based on ACEA data. The arrival reference considered two data points: the European Union’s ban on sales of combustion vehicles as of 2035 and our IETI car parc model that estimates approximately 4.6 million EVs in the car parc by 2030.2 We have built an exponential curve to account for delayed adoption and, as a result, estimate that by 2030 (earlier than the 2035 ban date), 100 percent of sales would need to be EVs to achieve a car parc of almost five million EVs. As the most recent progress is below the on-track range (including standard deviation),3 the status is lagging.

1 MOVES III grants must be included in the general tax base and are therefore taxable for income tax purposes.
2 PNIEC has set a similar target of 5.5 million EVs by 2030.
3 Base standard deviation for our analysis is 2014–19; in this case we considered 2020–22 as the numbers before 2019 were too small.

Detail view

Energy transition KPIs
Greenhouse gas emissions reductionRenewables in energy mixElectric vehicle salesRenewable molecules adoptionEnergy dependencyNetwork readinessHousehold electricity pricesIndustry electricity prices
Industrialization KPIs
Industrial gross value addedVehicle productionInvestment in fixed assetsR&D investmentIndustry employmentIndustry exports

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