Promoted by the Ministry of Industry, the Comprehensive Strategy to Promote Electric Vehicles was signed on 6 April by institutional agencies and companies, including the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces and E.ON Spain. Its objective is "to facilitate the introduction of electric or plug-in vehicles, so that 250,000 units of these vehicles will be on the roads in Spain by 2014". The document describes the registration of 110,000 electric vehicles (EV) in 2014 (approximately 7% of the market estimated in 2008) as an "attainable goal". According to the Strategy, 250,000 EVs "could be circulating in Spain" by 2014 (1% of the 2008 fleet).
E.ON describes itself as a pioneer "in developing and launching an e-mobility project in Germany, where it has already launched a pilot programme in Munich"." In addition, the company has signed agreements with manufacturers such as BMW and Volkswagen to develop these initiatives. The energy group has selected Santander "as the spearhead to implement its electric car strategy in Spain, and, thanks to this agreement with the Cantabrian capital, the company will launch four charging points in different areas of the city to facilitate recharging electric cars".
Spanish-German alliance
The Cantabrian city and the German multinational have also committed to developing a guide "setting out a series of advantages to encourage the use of these vehicles, such as being able to circulate in restricted areas, the establishment of specific loading and unloading times, and the creation of reserved public spaces for recharging fleet to provide essential services such as, for example, health care or policing". The company has also begun to provide training to its employees to use these vehicles, after it bought electric cars for workers to use when performing maintenance work in Santander.
With a team of 1,300 professionals, E.ON Spain operates in the deregulated market for the generation and commercialisation of electricity, and in the regulated electricity distribution market. The company has an installed conventional and renewable generation capacity of 4,600 MW across the Iberian Peninsular, and distributes and sells electricity to over 670,000 customers through an infrastructure of 33,000 kilometres of cables.
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