The incentive program for the purchase of Moves electric vehicles will be extended until the end of 2024, with an additional provision of 200 million euros. The third call of the plan was scheduled to conclude on July 31 and will now run until … the last day of December.
As stated in the Council of Ministers by the head of the Treasury portfolio, María Jesús Montero, “we have decided that the plan will be in force during the second part of the year due to the success of the aid program.”
According to Montero, with the expansion of the budget “1.5 billion have already been exceeded in aid for the purchase of electric vehicles.” The Moves, at the beginning of June, had exceeded the allocated budget in all the autonomous communities, except in Catalonia, the Canary Islands, Aragon and Navarra.
One of the main complaints about the mechanism was that the funds were not received at the time of purchase – it could take more than a year to process – and that these could affect the tax bracket in the personal income tax return.
As a novelty, “an important tax incentive” has been introduced for companies and individuals to renew their fleets: vehicles and charging systems acquired in 2024 will be able to count on their free amortization in the income tax return for the current year (which will be out in 2025). This will also apply to the self-employed.
The measure is progress, but it is far from the VAT exemption that the sector has been demanding to convert its vehicles to zero-emission models, which has been extremely effective in countries such as Norway or Portugal.
In addition, Montero announced that a new item of 50 million would be created for Moves Mitma, whose 400 million euros expired on April 30. The additional amount comes from the Ministry of Transport’s provisions and will be allocated to applications that were received before the call expired.
In total, the Moves for heavy vehicles – trucks and buses – received more than 12,000 applications worth 627 million euros. The vast majority of them (98%) were destined for the scrapping of polluting trucks to acquire more sustainable models.
The extension of Moves III comes two weeks after Wayne Griffiths announced his decision to no longer lead the Spanish manufacturers’ association, Anfac. “I will continue defending the interests of the Spanish automotive industry, but without support or concrete measures, I cannot contribute more,” he stated.
The Spanish market has been skeptical of electrified models, and is one of the two large automobile markets in Europe that has a market share considerably below the community average – the other being Italy.
So far this year, the penetration of plug-in hybrids and zero emissions amounts to 10.4% of the total, while the EU average reaches 19.4% and, to put it in perspective, in France it is of 26.6%.
