More than a third of the cars in Spain are driving without an environmental sticker

The arrival of Madrid Central first and of Madrid 360 afterwards, along with the Low Emission Zone in Barcelona, has made the DGT environmental stickers something necessary for driving in Spanish cities. But this has highlighted a problem that was already known, but which has proven to be quite serious and pressing.

It has been verified that the ageing of the Spanish vehicle fleet means that around 31.7% of the cars being driven in Spain do not have this sticker. This means they are petrol cars registered before January 2000 and diesel cars registered before January 2006.

But this is not the only problem, because it has also been found that 34.3% of cars carry a B sticker, meaning they are petrol cars registered between 2000 and 2006 and diesel cars registered between 2006 and 2014. In other words, very old cars with exhaust emissions that exceed what is advisable.

Cars with a C sticker account for 24.1% and represent petrol cars registered after 2006 and diesel passenger cars registered after 2014. ECO-labelled cars, which are hybrids and low-emission vehicles such as those running on CNG, LPG or LNG, make up 1.2% of the total. And here, in addition to the small number of cars of this type, one must take into account the problems that Mild Hybrid cars are having, which could fall outside the ECO sticker.

Finally, cars with a 0 sticker represent only 0.1% of the total. Yet the number of sales of this type of vehicle has increased this year. Their number is still not significant nor represents a remarkable percentage, which makes the problem of polluting emissions a worrying one, especially with regard to the age of the Spanish vehicle fleet.

The solution to these pollution problems would therefore lie more in modernising the vehicle fleet, even if it involves latest-generation petrol or diesel cars, than in the inclusion of electric vehicles. A solution that could be far more efficient than all the other solutions, which remain distant for various reasons.