The Moves scheme, which supports the purchase of electric vehicles and the installation of charging points, has effectively run out of funding and will end in 2025. Instead, the executive branch will launch a new aid program for electric vehicle purchases in the coming weeks, which would represent a fundamental change to previous measures. Management of the fund will no longer be the responsibility of autonomous communities, an expert source confirmed to this newspaper. This is something the auto industry has called for ad nauseam repeatedly, and we’ve seen the progress of the move vary widely from city to city. Under the previous system, the average wait time for applicants to receive their grant was one to two years, depending on the region.
The new program will thus emulate Reinicia Auto+, a scheme launched in the community of Valencia to help all those who lost their cars in the disaster of October 29, 2024. Reinicia Auto+ is directly managed by the central government and has been praised by the industry for the speed with which subsidies are disbursed. “The best plan for us is the Valencia plan. Customers, manufacturers, dealers, everyone is satisfied. During the one month wait for the Valencia plan and 18 months for the move, I will continue to use the one month plan,” explains an automotive official.
The new national aid plan for electric vehicles will be part of a major shock plan that industry and the Ministry of Industry have been working on all year, and that Josep Maria Recasens, the president of the national automobile industry association Unfac, himself first mentioned for the end of 2024. The strategic automotive plan, called Plan Auto 2030, includes a number of measures, including specific aid lines to attract electric vehicle and battery production to Spain. Research and development incentives; initiatives to achieve competitive energy prices and proposed changes to the auto tax system that would allow for self-financing of support for electric vehicles. However, multiple parties agree that the latter will not happen, at least not yet. Regarding the new electricity subsidy plan, the executive branch is preparing items whose financial sources and amounts are still unknown. For reference, Moves 2025 was 400 million.
Another question is: What happens to all the people who request Moves and are left on the waiting list after the funds run out? In September, the national automobile association Anfac reported that the Move had already sold out in Andalusia, Aragon, Cantabria, Catalonia, Valencia, Galicia, Madrid, Navarra and the Basque region, which account for 85% of Spain’s electric car market. The industry itself predicted in April that the program would struggle to survive the summer at its current pace, with sales nearly double from a year ago. The final move was approved on April 1, retroactive to January 1, to cover all requests that had been pending since the beginning of the year, after the previous move was rejected in January along with the rest of the omnibus decree due to negative votes in parliament by PP, Vox and Jantz.
Plan to save Spain’s car industry
Spain has withstood the international winds that have hit the car well, and although car production has fallen slightly this year due to the downturn in the European market, it has achieved new investments, such as the huge CATL and Stellantis factories in Zaragoza and the battery factory being built by Gotion and Innovat in Valladolid. However, the industry is aware of the risks that this transformation of the industry entails for Spain, giving rise to the need for the Automotive 2030 plan. “Cars generate around 85 billion euros, half of which is represented by industrial activity. 20% to 30% of this (or 8.5 billion to 12.75 billion euros) is at risk if we do nothing, because our added value depends on 95% of the internal combustion engine ecosystem,” Recasens said in an interview with this publication published in September. The government says the Automobile 2030 plan will be announced by the end of the year.
The sector’s master plan was developed primarily between the Ministry of Industry and Anfac, but Recasens said it was presented to “everyone”, including autonomous communities, opposition parties, city councils and other motoring associations. The manager said the plan has received “general support,” but those in the field are waiting to see what kind of funding is needed to make it truly useful and not just a list of good intentions.
State-owned automakers face a major challenge in converting factories to electric vehicles, but China has dominated Europe in this area, controlling the entire value chain of both battery and car production. In fact, Spain has been successful in attracting Chinese companies to set up industrial projects in the country. Gothion and CATL, already mentioned, are joined by Envision, which has a battery factory in Extremadura, and Chery Automobile, which is based at the former Nissan Barcelona facility. The country is also aiming to attract other big companies, including BYD, which is targeting Spain to build its third factory in Europe after Turkey, which has a free trade agreement with Hungary and the EU.
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