Is Southern Europe finally beginning to see the sense in EVs?
March car sales in Spain, a market still resisting decarbonization, reflect the growing popularity of fully electric vehicles, the only automotive segment whose figures are rising and that now exceeds 5% of total sales. Sales of gasoline vehicles fell by 41% compared to the same month of the previous year, and diesel vehicles by 44%, remarkable figures given that last year was already a bad period affected by the pandemic.
Hybrid vehicles (HEVs) also fell by 13% and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) by 6%, in the context of a significant worldwide decline. The car industry’s lies about this worst-of-both-worlds option have been exposed.
Why are car-buyers turning away from diesel and petrol and going electric? It could have something to do with supply problems with the obsolete, low-margin microchips used by most traditional companies: Volkswagen has been forced to close factories and had planned to phase out dozens of internal combustion models to focus on electric and higher-margin vehicles; but it is not the fundamental reason.
The main cause of the ever-increasing shift in market preferences is not the lack of supply resulting…
