Spain

Madrid City Hall, Spain, has decided to go big for electric cars and install EV recharging points at all public parking facilities in the city. This means that the city's 36 parking installations will have up to 58 recharging points where EVs can be charged for free. What's more, City Hall has announced that all new parking lots will include these charging stations and the system will also be brought to municipal facilities that are used by residents. This isn't the last EV step for Madrid: City

Click on image above to see a full gallery of the EcoDesafio Honda Insight in Barcelona

Bilbao, Spain, has a subway system that is famous for having its stations designed by Sir Norman Foster. There's now another reason that people might be interested in riding the underground rails. Metro de Bilbao, the company that manages the railway system, has announced that all the energy they used during 2008 was obtained from renewable sources and was supplied by Naturgas, a local utility. The company claims that the suburban train system has saved

Following the in the successful footsteps of France's €1,500, Germany's €2,500 and Britain's £2,000 vehicle scrapping programs, Spain's Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has announced a €2,000 scrappage plan to stimulate that country's auto ind

Think's European expansion continues with the announcement that 550 of the company's City electric vehicles will be delivered to Spain later this ye

Might Spain soon jump on the vehicle scrapping bandwagon? According to ANFAC, an organization of automakers with operations in Spain, sales were down 45.6-percent from the same month a year ago, a sobering fact that's caused the organization to reiterate its stance that the country needs to implement a scrapping program of its own. According to ANFAC, "Spain is the only country among the five principal European markets where this type of specific incentive plan for passenger cars does not exist.

The all-new generation of Volkswagen TDI engines, fitted with common-rail technology instead of pump-injectors, is spreading through the corporate family. Next June, Seat is getting the new 1.6-liter diesel engines under the hoods of the Ibiza. The new 90hp version, which is the detuned version found in the Golf BlueMotion, reduces the Ibiza's fuel consumpting from 4.5 to 4.2 l/100 km (52.3 to 56 mpg

The European Union has reportedly granted Spain permission to offer another series of low-interest loans to automakers operating within its borders. The money is to be used to further various automaker's investments into products that meet the EU's environmental standards, which seems like a pretty broad standard to us. These loans are in addition to the €4 billion (£3.7 billion, $5.3 billion U.S.) of monetary assistance the Spanish government Jeremy Korzeniewski

Spain's fourth largest city is getting 75 public electric vehicle recharging stations throughout the city this year. Spain's ambitious program of introducing EVs, hybrid and plug-in cars (a million units for 2012) is promoting the new network under the Movele program. Seville is getting recharging stations in the most used parking lots in the city, as well as at the airport, city hall offices and other official buildings. The plan includes 500 electric cars, which will be allocated not only to p

Brazil's President Inázio Lula da Silva visited Europe not long ago and he promoted the benefits of Brazilian biodiesel in France and Spain. This might have seemed like a good idea, if it weren't for the fact that Spain's biggest oil company, Repsol, had just frozen the construction of a new biodiesel plant alongside the country's largest refinery in Tarragona. This leaves Brazil with just one relatively large oil company, Portugal's Galp, to distribute its biodiesel in the Old Continent.

Believe it or not, European cities are a little behind in incorporating hybrid powertrains to their fleets. Not long ago we mentioned a Spanish-made bus by Castrosua. This bus began tests on the streets of Barcelona this week. The Tempus, as it's called, mates an electric powertrain to Iveco's smallest diesel engine. It measures 9.5 meters long and 2.55 meters wide, perfect for old city centers. Acc

PSA has one of its largest manufacturing plants in the NW of Spain, near the city of Vigo. Since Spain is one of the countries that insists it will put a million EV and/or plug-in hybrids on roads by 2014 and is also Europe's 5th largest market, automakers are already introducing plug-in projects - projects that might be able to get €800 million from Spanish taxpayers for their

The transit authorities in Catalonia, Spain have decided to take the drastic speed limit on the accesses to the city of Barcelona to the next level. Similar to plans in other cities, like Rotterdam in the Netherlands, highways in Barcelona will now have variable speed limits. A smart system with light panel indicators will regulate speed on the C31 and C32 highways: the higher the pollution levels, the lower t

Although we get more of those credit rewards cards than we really need, here's one for a project that promotes biodiesel. A few territories in the European Union will soon have biodiesel fidelity cards (as they're technically known) to help you fill your car with the biofuel. The five regions are the Spanish provinces of Ávila, Burgos and Huelva, Pomurje in Slovenia and Abruzzo in Italy. Each region will offer benefits to biodiesel users. For instance, some local councils will reduce Road

Click on image for a hi-res gallery of the Seat León Twin Drive prototype

Although motorbikes can pollute less than cars, they still have a carbon footprint. In some European cities - Milan, Rome and Barcelona, for example - there are more two-wheeled vehicles than cars, and all those smaller footprints add up. Spain has decided to do something about the emissions from these scooters by adding a registration tax based on their CO2 numbers, like cars. How does the system work?

Click on image above for a high-res gallery of the 2009 Seat Ibiza Ecomotive