If you have a car that is over 15 years old, you have a problem
As of 2023, restrictions on these vehicles will increase, since it will be mandatory for all municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants to have a Low Emissions Zone.
Miriam Cubero has lost the job she had in two communities of owners in Madrid. It’s not that the neighbors are unhappy with her maintenance company. It’s just that she can no longer access these buildings. They are located within the Low Emissions Zone of the capital, ZBE. Since January 1 of this year, cars without an environmental label or not registered in the city are not allowed to enter it. His, a Citroën C15 petrol van registered in 1994, does not have it. “They were just over 10% of my business. If it continues like this, it’s ruin.”
In Barcelona, Daniel Pérez enters the rounds before 7 in the morning and returns after 8 pm. He doesn’t do it on a whim. It is his method to avoid being fined and to be able to continue using his car without a tag. “The car works fine and I don’t understand why I have to buy a new one. I can’t afford an expense like that,” he says. The Barcelona Low Emissions Zone came into force on January 1, 2020 and prohibits these vehicles from circulating from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. in an area of 95 km² that includes the municipal terms of the city of Barcelona and Hospitalet de Llobregat, and part of the municipalities of Cornellà de Llobregat, Esplugues de Llobregat and Sant Adrià de Besòs.
29.70% of passenger cars in Spain cannot move through the current low emission zones.
And they are not few. In Spain there are 2,135,976 gasoline cars and 4×4s over 20 years old, and 5,184,004 diesel cars and 4×4s over 15 years old. There are 7,319,980, 29.70% of the Spanish car park (24,624,352), according to data from MSI, an automotive market consultant. None of them is entitled to have the environmental label of the DGT. They are those registered before 2000 in the first case and before 2006 in the second.
It will be worse from 2023
The problems currently and permanently affect cities such as Madrid and Barcelona, both with a plan to further tighten restrictions over the next few years, and sporadically others such as Seville, Gijón, Valencia or Valladolid. But from 2023 they will increase, since it will be mandatory for all municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants to have a Low Emissions Zone. Driving around Spain can then become a real gymkhana for these cars.
According to the National Statistics Institute (INE), a total of 149 Spanish localities where 24 million people live, 52% of the inhabitants of Spain, including the Balearic and Canary Islands and the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, must create one of them.
That is why its owners have already formed associations to denounce the situation and defend their interests. These are the cases of the Association of Vehicles Affected by Environmental Restrictions, Avarm, created in 2021 in Madrid and which has filed an appeal against the ZBE before the Superior Court of Justice of the community, TSJM, and the Platform Association of People Affected by Environmental Restrictions. Circulatory Restrictions, Asocparc, in Barcelona, which also has a lawsuit filed with the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia, TSJC.
Circulating with them can be a real gymkhana when municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants create their ZBE in 2023
Miguel Álvarez, spokesman for the former, maintains that the rule has been made “without taking into account many personal and work situations”, and that it also “forces you to mis-sell or change” a car that can end up in municipalities where these limitations do not exist. , with which the problem of contamination is transferred to another place.
Mónica Xufre, spokesperson for the second, denounces that the measure “is bullying of the Administration to the full-fledged citizen. Who should protect us, attacks us, and in a fierce way, with campaigns in which we are blamed and criminalized. She warns that it is affecting “retirees, workers” and people who do not have the resources to buy a new car, and that those who have been forced to sell them “have done so for four dollars in places like Teruel, Huelva or Galicia.”
Both criticize the criteria used by municipalities to limit access, the environmental label of the DGT, and request its withdrawal or modification. Something that sources from this institution rule out, stating that “there is no planned modification of the environmental labeling in force.”
There are more reproaches that come from the automobile clubs. The president of the Royal Automobile Club of Catalonia, RACC, Josep Mateu, believes that the measure “harms the weakest users, because there are no alternatives or aid”, while “generating uncertainty in the sector” and has not achieved the objective of “reducing pollution to the expected levels”.
Mateu also criticizes “the short-termism” of politicians and maintains that these vehicles “are going to go to other areas or cities if they are in good condition or to other countries.”
Ignacio Fernández, director of the RACE Foundation, Royal Automobile Club of Spain, agrees and warns that “a dispersion effect is being generated of the vehicles considered to be the most polluting towards towns and municipalities in the outskirts”.
Fernández is committed to other alternatives, such as “financial aid for the renovation of the park or more consensual measures with all the actors involved so as not to harm the millions of drivers who are being affected.”
The oldest win
The numbers point to a robust market for this type of vehicle and an overwhelming victory for these over the new ones. Just over 60% of the cars sold in 2021 in Spain were more than 10 years old and were diesel and gasoline, according to data from the coche.net portal. The 2022 offer of this segment is the majority in seven autonomous communities, including Castilla y León, Castilla La Mancha, Extremadura or La Rioja.
These cars can end up in small towns where these limitations do not exist for their movement.
“The desire to buy a young car is there, but the reality is different. The uncertainty and the economic situation make the offer for old vehicles rise”, describes Marcel Blanes, head of institutional relations and spokesman for this portal. And he adds: “The implementation of the ZBE will boost their sale in provinces and municipalities where these limitations do not exist.”
Nicolás Cantaert, general director of Sumauto, a specialist in vertical motor portals, is of the opinion that with this situation, in which “the old car is the cheap car”, two Spains will be created, “that of the big cities , with new cars, and the other, with cheap cars”.
An opinion that he shares with José Manuel López, commercial director of MSI, when he affirms that these cars “are going to have a market in the most rural world and less affected by these restrictions”.