The Valencia Provincial Council launches a line of aid for the purchase of electric cars and charging points.

Aid for purchasing electric cars and charging points for electric cars and vehicles.

• The new grant program will have a budget of 750,000 euros with two lines of aid for the acquisition of electric vehicles and for the installation of charging points.
• Maria Josep Amigó, Vice President of the Provincial Council: “If we change just 25% of the light vehicles in the Valencia regions to electric vehicles, we would reduce more than 140,000 tons of CO2 emissions.”
• Josep Bort, Deputy for the Environment: “The electric car is the present, not the future, and what we need to do as institutions is to promote it.”

The Provincial Council of Valencia is making a new call for grants available to municipalities in the Valencia regions for the acquisition of electric vehicles and the installation of charging points. This new program has a budget of 750,000 euros, and the maximum subsidizable amount for each municipality will be 20,000 euros, as explained by the Vice President of the Provincial Council, Maria Josep Amigó, and the Deputy for the Environment, Josep Bort, during the presentation of these new aids.

“The replacement of municipal fleets with electric cars and other electric vehicles is a fundamental issue because if we change just 25% of the cars in the Valencia regions to electric cars, we would reduce more than 140,000 tons of CO2 emissions,” pointed out Vice President Amigó.

The Vice President explained that municipalities need financial support to make this replacement of cars, which is why they are offering these aids to municipalities both for changing to electric cars and for the installation of charging points. “We believe this is a help that will be well received by the municipalities because all administrations, both local and supramunicipal, are aware of the importance of the fight against climate change,” she emphasized. Deputy Josep Bort, for his part, stressed that the electric vehicle is the present, not the future, and that public institutions need to promote investments in charging points to complement other investments and aids that L’IVACE has already launched last year and also promote the purchase of electric cars.

“The electric vehicle is not just the car; it also includes electric industrial vehicles, vans, or tricycles, along with other options, with the uniqueness that up to four cars can be subsidized, each with a maximum subsidy amount,” detailed the deputy.

This new initiative from the Environment area is part of a set of actions aimed at combating climate change that is being developed in the provincial corporation as the territorial coordinator of the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy. In the case of electric cars, replacing a passenger car or a van with an electric car will reduce CO2 emissions by 43.6%.

The transport sector emits 31% of the carbon dioxide emissions produced in the Valencia regions, totaling more than 1.1 million tons, which means that each inhabitant emits 0.6 tons of CO2 per year.

The criteria for granting these aids take into account whether the new car is to replace a combustion engine car, whether the municipality is subscribed to the Covenant of Mayors, whether the locality has approved municipal ordinances on sustainable mobility, whether the municipality grants bonuses on the mechanical traction vehicle tax for electric cars, and whether the municipality is subscribed to the Valencia Pact for Safe and Sustainable Mobility.

The Provincial Council of Valencia, committed to sustainability.

The Provincial Council of Valencia, as the territorial coordinator of the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, aims to reach out to local authorities in its territory to promote adherence and also to provide signatories with the necessary technical, economic, administrative, and political assistance to achieve commitments. In this sense, it is noteworthy the significant increase in Valencian Mayors that have joined this initiative since 2015, when there were only 17 entities registered, and now there are 222.

This Pact constitutes the main European movement in which local and regional authorities participate, having voluntarily committed to reducing CO2 emissions by 40% before 2030, with the aim of improving energy efficiency, using renewable energy sources in their territories, and developing measures to adapt to the consequences of climate change.

In the framework of these actions, in recent months, the provincial corporation has developed a series of regional workshops to promote electric mobility, energy self-consumption, the energy transition, and energy poverty in collaboration with ASELEC.