What aid can you request to buy an electric car?

Everything you can request to save money on the purchase of an electric car

According to the most recent information from the Spanish Association of Automobile and Truck Manufacturers (ANFAC), in 2023 the average age of vehicles in circulation in Spain has exceeded 14 years. This number represents a 70% increase in the age of the car pool since 2008, setting a new record. It is therefore not surprising that our politicians are trying to mitigate the problem by offering subsidies for the purchase of more modern and efficient vehicles.

In recent decades, in Spain numerous aids have been offered for the purchase of new vehicles. The objective of all of them has always been the same: take old cars off the road and that newer and more efficient cars are introduced into the Spanish car fleet. The Prever Plan did so between 1997 and 2008, followed by the 2000E Plan, promoted as soon as the economic crisis began. During the Rajoy government, the famous PIVE Plan was offered, which ended in 2016 to make way for new plans for stimulate only the purchase of sustainable cars.

Since 2019, the MOVES planwhich since 2021 is in a new stage called MOVES III plan. This is the main stimulus that we have in our country to acquire hybrid, electric and fuel cell vehicles. Along these lines we will discuss everything you need to know about this and other aid, both the terms and the amounts that can be discounted on the purchase of a new vehicle and its particularities.

MOVES III plan. What is it and how can I benefit?

We call Plan MOVES III is the third extension of the MOVES Planwhich originally began in 2019. It is an aid offered by the Government of Spain to the purchase of more environmentally sustainable vehicles.

In April 2021, the Pedro Sánchez executive approved a new item to extend the plan, with a budget limit of 400,000,000 euros. However, from the government they were open to doubling this budget in case it ran out before the deadline, established on December 31, 2023.

What car can I buy with MOVES III?

To get the maximum amount, it will be necessary to purchase an electric car and send an old vehicle to the scrapyard

You can benefit from the aid of the MOVES III Plan as long as you meet the requirements. MOVES III is designed to motivate the purchase of efficient vehicles. At the same time, the goal of scrap old carswith the idea of ​​not putting them back into circulation.

The help will depend fundamentally on the type of car you buy and whether or not you provide a scrap vehicle. As we will see, this aid does differentiate between types of zero-emission vehicles, so the amount will be higher or lower depending on what we buy. These are the possibilities that help allows us:

• Maximum aid of 7,000 euros for the purchase of electric and fuel cell cars, as long as we deliver a car to scrap. If we do not have a vehicle to scrap or do not want to hand it over so as not to lose it, the aid is slightly reduced, with a maximum of 4,500 euros.
• Help to buy plug-in hybrid cars: not only the electric ones are going to benefit from this government aid. If you buy a PHEV-type car, you can also save a maximum of 5,000 euros. Once again, you will have to deliver a vehicle to scrap. If you believe that your current vehicle still has a life ahead of it —or you prefer to sell it on your own to get a little more money out of it, which is much more likely—, you can aspire to a maximum aid of 2,500 euros.

In addition, MOVES III contemplates a few interesting scenarios that can benefit you, and are the following:

• Aid for km.0 vehicles that meet the requirements previous ones, that is to say, that they are electric, fuel cell or plug-in hybrids. The amounts in this case are the same, the only thing that must be taken into account is that the maximum period to which the aid is applied is to vehicles that have been registered a maximum of 9 months before the entry into force of the plan, which is activated on April 10, 2021.
• Bonus of 10% extra aid to people registered in the “Empty Spain”. If the municipality in which you are registered has a census of less than 5,000 inhabitants or is in a rural area, you can claim 10% more than the amount.

Details to take into account with MOVES III

We’d love not to have to say Bad points of this help, but it would be misrepresenting the truth. Therefore, before you are disappointed in the dealer on duty, here are a couple of details that you should keep in mind before taking advantage of the plan:

• help is not immediate: unlike other equivalent aids that have been given in neighboring European countries, MOVES III does not apply directly to the price of the vehicle. Basically, we have to pay for the car in full and wait patiently for the help from the IDAE to reach our bank account. This makes aid less attractive, since we will be conditioned by psychological prices and we will have to wait months until we receive the money. It also becomes a hindrance for dealers, since they must work with the full prices of the vehicles.
• You have to declare the aid to the Treasury: the aid from the MOVES III Plan must be declared to the tax authorities exactly the same as other capital gains. Basically, when you have to pay taxes for the corresponding year, you must specify the aid and pay the corresponding amount. Therefore, aid is never going to be as juicy as it appears at first glance.

Other extra aid from MOVES III

The MOVES III Plan includes other types of aid, and they are the following:

Help for charging points

MOVES III also wants to promote the installation of charging points in private venues

Both individuals and freelancers can benefit from a subsidy for 80% of the cost of installing a charging point for electric cars. The aid also applies to companies and public bodies with economic activity, where the aid can amount to 60% of the cost.

This grant goes included in the MOVES III Plan, and it works in the same way as the help for the purchase of vehicles. We will request the help, we will make the purchase and, a few months later, we will receive the money in our account. It is cumulative, so you can ask for help to buy the vehicle and also to install the charging point.

This aid has or has had its equivalent in practically all the countries that are working on the transition to electric vehicles.

Grants for companies with fleets and professional drivers

There are also a few grants aimed at facilitating the transition towards the sustainable vehicle with a focus on the freelancers and companies. These aids are the following:

MOVES Fleets II

MOVES Fleets II seeks to make it easier for companies to make the transition to electricity

The MOVES Flotas II Plan began in 2022, although, being a help for companies, the terms are not that long. The second call closed on March 8, 2023. However, it is interesting to point out how it works, since it is very possible that another call will be reopened in the future.

This MOVES Fleets II Plan is an aid for medium and large companies to make a transition towards electrification. The budget for this second call has been €50 million. In order to access the aid, the minimum requirement is that the companies acquire between 25 and 500 vehicles that meet the conditions mentioned in the first section that we discussed at the beginning of the article.

There is an extra requirement to be able to request this help. They will only be eligible for MOVES Fleets II companies that work in two or more Autonomous Communities simultaneously. In addition, the aid in this case also applies to the purchase of second-hand electric, PHEV and fuel cell vehicles, as long as they are no more than 12 months old from their registration in Spain.

Extra 10% help for professional drivers

VTC and Taxis can also benefit from superior help thanks to MOVES III. Free market

Both taxi drivers and VTC licensed drivers can take advantage of an extra appendix of the MOVES III Plan that allows increase the corresponding aid by 10%.

Tax benefits for the purchase of a sustainable vehicle

In addition to the aids that we have mentioned, there are a few fiscal benefits that favor the purchase of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids:

• Registration tax exemption: electric, fuel cell and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) cars are exempt from paying registration tax.
• road tax: It depends on each municipality, but we can save up to 100% of this tax if we get an ECO or Zero Emissions vehicle.
• IBI discounts: from the beginning of 2022, each municipality can establish bonuses in the Property and Real Estate Tax for all citizens who have installed a charging point on their property.