Abstract

The European Union has established certain climate commitments to alleviate the harmful effects of pollution on the planet. One of the goals is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.

The transport sector is considered one of the largest emitters of pollutants, so it will be crucial to urgently reduce carbon emissions derived from fossil fuels, widely used by the country's current fleet of vehicles.

Although there is a commitment to policies and alternatives that promote more sustainable mobility, encouraging active mobility and public transport, the use of private vehicles will continue to be essential in various situations, so it is necessary to look for less polluting alternatives in the use of the private vehicle.

The electric vehicle is presented as the main alternative to combustion vehicles, due to its lower impact on carbon emissions, although there are still several challenges in the large-scale replacement of the most polluting vehicles. One of these challenges is the social gap in access to electric vehicles since the acquisition and maintenance of this type of vehicle will be unfeasible for the population, which generally require a larger initial investment.

To reduce this gap, some solutions have been tested, among them, the so-called social leasing of electric vehicles, a French project aimed at narrowing the current access gap and allowing the electric vehicle to also be accessible to people with less purchasing power, thanks to government subsidy programs that supplement the payment of an affordable monthly fee for low-middle income earners.

In this presentation, we propose to present the methodology and some of the results of the implementation of a social leasing service for electric vehicles applied to the Spanish case.

Based on the analysis of microdata, different scenarios will be proposed that take into account social demand and the most suitable population profile to benefit from the service, the economic viability and the costs derived from the implementation of the leasing service, as well as the environmental impact

The results will be compared with current car purchase subsidies, and the impact on equality.