Feijóo Proposal to Scrap Cars Over 10 Years Sparks Debate

Retiring Cars Over 10 Years: The Cost

A hybrid older than ten years, with an ECO label and emissions below 100 grams of CO2 per kilometer. It complies with regulations and carries the ECO sticker. Yet it fits the profile that a proposal attributed to Feijóo sends to the scrapyard: all passenger cars over a decade old out of circulation, with public aid to buy another. The idea circulated in November 2022 and keeps resurfacing because it touches three things no one wants to face head-on: who pays, what gets destroyed, and what is bought next.

What exactly does Feijóo propose regarding cars over 10 years?

Remove from circulation passenger cars over ten years old, considering them highly polluting, and finance their replacement with public money. This is the core of the approach attributed to the PP leader, framed as an alternative to "insisting" on pushing electric cars, which many families cannot afford. The fine print admits two readings, neither closed. One speaks of forced removal from the vehicle park; the other insists that what is requested is financing the change, meaning those wanting to replace their car get help. Between the two lies an abyss, determining whether the measure is an industrial plan or a pocketbook problem.

The Paradox of Scrapping Functional Cars

The most uncomfortable argument is not economic, but environmental. Some sum it up in one sentence: manufacturing a new car already pollutes as much as the old one emitted through its exhaust pipe for 15 years. If this order of magnitude holds, destroying vehicles with useful life ahead is anything but ecological, and using age as a proxy for dirtiness is poorly supported. The case of veteran hybrids illustrates this: a car over ten years old, with an ECO label and emissions under 100 gr/km has nothing obvious to envy compared to a new combustion engine vehicle. What is being retired, in many cases, is a working car.

Where Does the Subsidy Money Come From?

From everyone. Grants for changing cars do not come from a magic fund, and details reveal, according to calculations circulating in the debate, €6,000 plus management costs plus the usual administrative inefficiencies of any public plan. The beneficiary doesn't take it clean either: the subsidy lowers the cost of a car that still costs much more than the one surrendered. For someone who just paid high rent at month-end, the rest of the new car isn't in the account. And for those who can't cover the difference, the alternative to a twelve-year-old car isn't an electric one: it's having no car.

The Vehicle Fleet and Ignored Emissions

The recurring criticism is about focus. We talk about private cars, not ships, planes, trains, coal and diesel boilers, or generators still running in thousands of businesses. No one denies that an old vehicle emits more than its modern equivalent; what is debated is why the adjustment is always demanded from the link driving to work each morning. There is also a fundamental issue: if Spain's vehicle fleet ages, it is also because changing cars is expensive. Targeting age without lowering purchase costs is targeting a symptom.

European Industry, Low-End Models, and Tariffs

There is a reading focusing on supply: according to proponents, the European automotive industry abandoned the mid and low-end segments, less profitable, to focus on premium. When demand didn't trinc, the response wasn't lower prices: it was tariffs on Chinese cars, which still cover affordable ranges. The declared goal is protecting European production; the de facto effect is narrowing accessible supply just when people are asked to change cars. Free market works in both directions until it stops doing so.

The Moving Threshold: Today 10 Years, Tomorrow 8

The most uncomfortable point is that the limit doesn't stay static. If today cars over ten years are removed, tomorrow the fleet will be newer, and the new old will be nine, eight years. This is the natural slippage of any threshold. Hence the short step to political suspicion: some place the measure in the global climate agenda and fifteen-minute cities, a claim launched without proof that should be treated as what it is, a partisan hypothesis. Another matter is the underlying data: age as a guilt label has an expiration date.

If we accept the calculation circulating in the debate—one new car equals fifteen years of exhaust—the cleanest vehicle in the fleet might precisely be the one this proposal wants to send to the scrapyard.