Buying a Car with the Auto+ Plan: Why the €4,500 Aid Is Turning into a Summer Nightmare with the Tax Authority

The grand promise of the Auto+ Plan was that the purchase assistance scheme created to replace MOVES would deliver faster, more direct aid, centralized management, and less bureaucracy. This is how the Ministry of Industry and Tourism presented it when this incentive program, aimed at boosting the purchase of electric cars and plug-in hybrids (PHEV), was approved last February.

The reality, by mid-June, is quite different: in the middle of the pre-summer registration drive, buyers still cannot request a single euro of the government aid promised. A situation that concerns both customers and manufacturers and dealerships, who have been months demanding certainty about how the new system would work.

The aid exists on paper, but it still hasn’t reached buyers

It is worth remembering that the Auto+ Plan provides public subsidies of up to 4,500 euros for the purchase of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, to which another mandatory 1,000 euros contributed by the dealer is added. According to the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, the program has an initial endowment of 400 million euros and is retroactive for all vehicles purchased since January 1, 2026.

However, the final approval of the Royal Decree that should regulate the application procedure is still pending. During the presentation of AEDIVE’s Electric Mobility Yearbook, Alberto Ruiz Rodríguez, the Director General of Industrial Programs at the Ministry of Industry, already indicated that the subsidies “would not be operational until mid-year.” The calendar has reached that point, but the platform to apply for them remains unavailable.

Meanwhile, sales continue to grow. According to registration data from ANFAC, FACONAUTO and Ganvam, between January and April 85,724 plug-in vehicles were registered, encompassing pure electric, PHEV, and extended-range electric (EREV) models. Since the subsidies are retroactive, all those vehicles are already potential beneficiaries of the budget.

According to the latest registration data from ANFAC, FACONAUTO and Ganvam, only between January and April 85,724 plug-in vehicles were sold between pure electrics, PHEVs and EREVs… and because the subsidies have had retroactive effect since January 1, all of them are potential beneficiaries of the program.

If we take as a reference an average subsidy close to 3,500 euros per vehicle, given the “EEE” criterion (Electric, Economic and European) included in the official Plan Auto+ documentation, a significant portion of the budget would already be committed even before the application window opens. And if the current registration pace continues, the available margin for new transactions could shrink much faster than expected.

The fine print that many buyers discover later

The uncertainty about when the money will arrive is compounded by the tax treatment of these aids. The Tax Agency reminds in its documentation on the deduction for the acquisition of electric vehicles that the subsidized amounts or those to be subsidized through public programs must be considered when calculating this tax benefit.

Specifically, public subsidies reduce the base on which the national 15% deduction for the purchase of certain plug-in electric vehicles is applied, meaning the final savings obtained by the buyer may be lower than many drivers calculate when crunching the numbers before signing the contract.

To this is added another question the Government has not fully clarified yet: who will ultimately administer the subsidies and how retroactivity will be applied to vehicles bought since January. In the documentation published so far, Industry notes that dealers, point-of-sale outlets and leasing companies can collaborate in processing the applications, though the final details remain pending the regulation to be approved.

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