James Warren
PRIME Minister Pedro Sanchez has announced a draft bill to push Spain’s motor industry into a greener future.
The bill – to be presented later today – will aim to bring Spain’s ailing motor industry alongside its international counterparts in terms of carbon neutrality.
The new automotive plan will focus on the environmentally friendly electric and hybrid car industry and aim to make the technology cheaper, and easier to use and access across the country.
The country’s car parks were first on the agenda for the PM during his hour long briefing.
His plan will allow the installation of more and more electric charging points in municipal and private car parks, an issue currently facing electric vehicle owners.
Special incentives will also be rolled out over the coming years to encourage the ownership of environmentally friendly vehicles, both private and commercial.
Companies will be given special subsidies to replace their current fleets of vehicles with electric models.
Families with lower incomes, self employed and entrepreneurs will also ‘not get left behind’ with the new hand-outs, as they will form an important role in the investments.
In total, the government has been granted a total of €3.75 billion to help bring the plans to life, with the overall aim to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
“The bill is designed to make an urgent ecological transition towards sustainable and connected mobility” explained Sanchez.
The PM closed his statement by promising the new plans will strengthen a sector that currently accounts for 10% of the country’s GDP and employs a total of two million workers.
Since coming into power, the socialist leader has made his aim of becoming carbon neutral by 2050 very clear.
Last year, the Climate Change Law led Sanchez to face the impact the Spanish motoring sector has on the environment.
According to government predictions, and along now with the vast investment by the Spanish government, incentives and subsidies will aim to make electric vehicles cheaper than petrol and diesel by 2027.
The industry investment will certainly seem like ‘too little too late’ for the workers at Barcelona’s Nissan plant, which closed its doors last month due to lack of profitability, causing the loss of 3,000 jobs.
