Environment

Diesel vehicle sales down 25%

Balearic legislation banning new diesel vehicles from 2025 was passed earlier this week. | FRIEDEMANN VOGEL

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma14/02/2019 18:18

In the Balearics last year 53,349 new vehicles were registered, an increase of 5.2%. However, there was a decrease of around 25% in diesel vehicles, a fall which points to consumer uncertainty that had pre-dated the government's climate change legislation and the ban on new diesel vehicles coming into the Balearics from 2025. Diesel registrations in 2017 were 29,005; in 2018 they were 21,798.

Although there was a fall in diesel sales in 2018, the national association of car dealers, Faconauto, points to the fact that new vehicles sold last year would have contributed an average of 117 grams of CO2 per kilometre, one gram more than in 2017. The association, and it was not alone, was opposed to the government's legislation and has supported the complaint lodged by Spain's automobile manufacturers association with the European Union.

Nevertheless, there was a general decrease in diesel sales throughout Spain last year. This was against the background of European and Spanish intentions to prohibit the sales of new diesel, petrol and hybrid vehicles by 2040.

The president of the Balearic association of secondhand car dealers, Tolo Salom, believes that the legislation is an outrage. He is confident that the EU will look favourably on the complaint by the manufacturers and adds that new diesel models are less polluting than was once the case.