Good news: hybrids and electric cars will pay less for parking in Madrid

Yes, European cities want to improve the air that surrounds them, and they are making efforts to remove cars with conventional engines from their streets. Above all, as we have pointed out on previous occasions, cars powered by diesel, which have been declared persona non grata in many cities. So city councils are launching initiatives to promote the use of hybrid and electric vehicles in cities.

Some measures fall a little short, although it is always welcome when proposals arrive that help normalise the presence of these cars in the city. Madrid has proposed a reduction in the Regulated Parking System (SER), made up of the well-known blue zone and green zone that are present in many parts of the city. Thanks to this proposal, hybrids and electric cars get a 50% discount on the official rate.

Until now, the reduction was 20%, so users of one of these cars classified by the DGT as ECO vehicles benefit from a significant discount for parking in the city centre. This category includes plug-in hybrids with a range of more than 40 kilometres, non-plug-in hybrids, as well as those that run on natural gas, compressed natural gas and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), so it is not only cars based on electric mobility that will have this saving option when driving in the capital.

Plans to improve air quality in cities have led to the approval of the latest Protocol for High Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) Pollution Episodes. This sets out the characteristics that the city’s air must have and the conditions that must exist for the most polluting vehicles to be allowed to drive through the city centre in cases of excessive pollution.

This Protocol records which cars may circulate under these conditions, and vehicles bearing the ECO label, all those we have named above, may circulate freely, as they are not affected even under the most restrictive conditions. Will these incentives be what allows vehicles of this kind to be better regarded by users and genuinely begin to take hold in the market?

Source | Toyota