This year, news about restrictions on car traffic and the need to adapt to European emissions regulations has given the motor industry a real headache.
The new emissions standard came into force on 1 September. Despite the increase in new vehicle registrations in our country, which by November 2018 had grown by 8% compared with the previous year, the truth is that registrations suffered in the final stretch of the year. The European Union's new car emissions regulations (known as WLTP, short for Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles) measure how much a car pollutes in a more realistic and accurate way, which is why around 20% more of newly type-approved cars show that increase in emissions.
This standard, which came about thanks to an initiative of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in 2007, is not related to road tax and does not affect vehicles that are already registered. The idea was, and is, to improve the test cycle so that it is based on real-world driving. So that fuel consumption and emissions are measured more precisely.
As a result, newly registered vehicles will have to pay registration tax (when previously they did not have to), and they have also become more expensive. The tax, however, is also determined by other factors such as the car model, or what are considered combined CO2 emissions; how much each one pollutes in combination (a car with a sunroof, for example).
Vehicles emitting less than 120 grams of CO2 per kilometre are exempt from this tax. There are also exemptions for taxis and vehicles for people with reduced mobility (PRM), as well as discounts of 50% and 30% for large families and motorhomes, respectively.
The good news
Is that only around 5% of cars will pay this tax now that the September 2018 emissions regulations have come into force. Sánchez's Government has extended the transition period to soften the tax impact until 1 January 2021, when the number of vehicles that will have to pay the tax will rise to between 10% and 20%. Rajoy had already set this transition with a downward correlation between the old regulations (the NECD regulation, or New European Driving Cycle, used since 1992) and the new ones (the WLTP), so that the increase in emissions would not be counted in full.
The NECD regulation had become obsolete, since it carried out its tests in the laboratory, so its results regarding carbon dioxide emissions were not very reliable; by contrast, the WLTP carries out tests on the road, making it closer to real driving. Let us remember that this gas is directly responsible for climate change.