The concerns of the people in question of mobility They are very far from the government’s proposals. While the Executive focuses its speech on the sustainability and electrification as the only remedy, citizens continue to think of buy combustion cars and lamenting for him gasoline price and the diesel. This and other conclusions emerge from the report prepared by the public affairs and communication agency BeConfluence, in collaboration with Pons Mobility, after analyzing data that has left no less than 9.5 million people tracked in 2021 and 2022, thanks to their searches. , interactions in social networks and visits to websites.
All this information makes it possible to carry out a perfect ‘X-ray’ of the current worries of the citizenry in everything related to the mobility and transportation. A ranking headed by the fuel pricesfollowed by the mobility restrictions to the cars in the cities by the Low Emission Zones (ZBE)doubts about what type of vehicle to buy, administrative sanctions, or what will happen to vehicles with many years. Sustainability hardly appears in searches, despite the information tsunami and the efforts of the Government to centralize the debate on this aspect.
Electric scooters are an option that has grown in recent years
Only 22.9% of the 9.5 million Spaniards tracked carried out searches in the last two years on issues related to sustainable mobility. And only 9.9 ha expressed interest or concern about aspects of the alternative mobilitysuch as scooters or bicycles. At this moment, some 850,000 people look for information every month on mobility, the result of a rising trend: between 2017 and 2021, the increase was 22.3%. And in 2022, growth was 11%.
The combustion car is still the most sought after
The study reveals the great gap between the claims of official bodies and the needs of citizens. While executives talk only about zero emission vehicles and public aid is focused on this sector, users can hardly choose to buy a much cheaper and more functional car such as combustion. And with the added fear that they may soon become useless to enter the LEZs if they do not have the appropriate DGT sticker for it.
The ‘green’ cars at the moment are a minority
Despite this, 42.7% of Spaniards focus their searches on combustion vehiclescompared to 19.5% who do so in electrical18.4% in bicycles and 11.9% in electric scooters. Although the search for combustion models represents twice that of electric ones, the reality is even more disparate, since so many only 9.63% of the vehicles registered in 2022 had the DGT Zero Label (electric and plug-in hybrids), of which pure electric barely reached 4%.
The price of gasoline is the main concern
Regarding private transport, the most sought-after topics continue to be: the price of gasoline (18,5%), las Doubts about whether an electric car is mandatory in the city (14.9%), what types of vehicles can circulate on certain ZBEmobility restrictions or the cost of maintenance of a vehicle in the next years. As can be seen, all the searches revolve around the combustion car and its use.
The lack of charging points continues to be a problem
Other concerns of private users are vehicle theft (19.4%), the Lack of charging points for electric (16,9%), las new traffic laws, fines, traffic jams or parking problems. Again, those related to sustainability do not appear among the biggest concerns and the only reference to the electric car reveals one of its main weaknesses: the charging infrastructure.
For the general director of BeConfluence, Rosa Gomez-Acebothis study shows that “day-to-day concerns prevail of citizens and companies, far from topics of debate on the official agenda: concern about fuel prices, mobility restrictions on cars in cities, doubts about what type of vehicle to buy and also concern about administrative sanctions or what will happen to vehicles with many years”.
Ramon Ledesmaadvisory director of Pons Mobility, believes for his part that “2023 is already the year in which mobility will be one of the centers of public debate at a social and political level. Restrictions on automobiles, pay-per-use and new forms of mobility will require the Administrations to have a very well-defined strategy and the drafting of a clear and homogeneous regulatory framework”.