Barcelona opts for electric charging stations: traditional petrol station licences are no more

Spanish cities are embracing emission-free mobility and want the cars driving through them to be Zero Emission, so the measures being taken to improve everything related to clean mobility come as no surprise. Barcelona wants to take a step forward in this regard and has banned the installation of new petrol stations in the city’s urban area. The city of Barcelona has 105 petrol stations on its streets, a figure that the executive led by Ada Colau considers sufficient for the time being.

However, the council wants service stations to be installed, but dedicated to recharging the batteries of electric cars. Any new licence for opening service stations must necessarily provide battery charging points. In addition, Barcelona City Council has set a deadline for petrol stations to add at least one charging point.

The suspension of new petrol station concessions is not complete, as the council does not rule out expanding existing facilities, provided they are less than 250 metres from the ring roads, the port area or industrial zones. All of this planning is provisional, as it will be definitively approved within a year.

The council has also suggested some of the locations where these new electric charging stations could be installed. A location alongside the main urban arteries such as Gran Vía, Meridiana and Aragó is ideal for the council, while areas such as the Sierra de Collserola and Montjuïc will be left free of these new installations.

However, everything is up in the air, because installing these charging points is currently not a good business plan. Many cars charge overnight, both at home and in the garages of companies that operate these electric vehicle fleets. With these charges, electric cars can cover around 300 kilometres, which is the average range of today’s electric cars. This means these chargers would only be necessary if that range has to be exceeded, for instance on a longer journey.

Nevertheless, there are viable plans for electric vehicles to become increasingly popular in cities, so this plan could be a good way to improve buyers’ perception of electric cars. Will it be a good idea for that probable future?