The Used Car Show will once again fill the Montjuïc fairgrounds with nearly new, pre-owned, and zero-kilometer cars from tomorrow until Monday the 8th, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. This event returns after the sudden cancellation of the 2024 edition, but with a change in organization. While the show was organized by Fira de Barcelona and Fecavem, the Catalan automotive distribution association, until the canceled 2024 edition, this 2025 edition is being organized by the Gremi del Motor (Motor Guild). The president of this Guild, Jaume Roura, explained the philosophy behind this organizational change to ARA. "It's not a fair for presenting products, but a show for selling. Exhibitors are there to sell, and the previous organizers were more focused on a presentation show," he explained. According to Roura, the 2024 edition was canceled "because the costs didn't make participation worthwhile for the exhibitors." "We've sought a model better suited to cost reduction," says the president of the Guild.

Nearly one in four new cars sold in Catalonia is electrified, according to data released Monday by industry associations. Between January and November, a total of 123,940 passenger cars were registered in Catalonia – 13.6% more than in the same period last year – of which 29,957 were electrified, representing an 81.58% increase compared to the same period last year. Across Spain, 1,045,638 units were sold between January and November, a 14.7% increase, leading the automotive industry association ANFAC to predict that sales will exceed 1.1 million by the end of 2025. Despite the recovery in car sales, the figure is still below that of 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic. The association of brands and manufacturers highlighted the 100% growth in electrified passenger cars (21,315), representing 20.66% of the market in the tenth month of the year. Between January and November, 201,751 electrified cars were sold in Spain, accounting for 19.3% of all new passenger car registrations. In November, car registrations in Catalonia rose 16.8% compared to the same month last year, reaching 12,771 units, according to data from ANFAC (the Spanish Association of Automobile and Truck Manufacturers). Catalonia was the second autonomous community with the highest volume of transactions, behind the Community of Madrid, with 37,071 units (+11.8%).

Tesla shareholders have approved paying the company's CEO, Elon Musk, a package of company shares valued at one trillion – that is, one million million or 10¹²—dollars. The electric car multinational's annual shareholders' meeting approved this payment as compensation to Musk—who is now the richest person in the world—but it will only materialize if the company reaches a series of sales and profit targets.

Car sales rose 12.4% in Catalonia through August compared to the same period last year. Specifically, 86,523 new vehicles were registered in eight months, according to data published this Monday by the sector's associations. In August alone, 8,255 registrations were recorded in Catalonia, 16.8% more than in August 2024. The manufacturers' association (Anfac) celebrated the market's continued "at a good pace" and attributed this, above all, to sales to individuals and companies and to electrified vehicles.

The trade war is having a direct impact on the results of European car manufacturers, and Seat has been no exception. In the first six months of the year, the Martorell-based company suffered a 90.6% drop in operating profit, to €38 million, due to market uncertainty and tariffs imposed by the United States government. In fact, given this situation, the company has postponed its operations. sine die the leap to the United States, initially planned for 2030.

Josep Maria Pujol Artigas (Rubí, 1934) is a historic figure in the automotive industry, a sector in Europe experiencing one of its worst periods in decades, threatened by technological change and the onslaught of Chinese manufacturers. Coming from a conservative family and a poor student, Pujol found his place when he opened a car wiring workshop at just 14 years old, thanks to the help of his father. Today, that small workshop is Ficosa. In this interview, we review Pujol's personal history, which took him from failing to finish school to building what is now a group that manufactures automotive components and has a turnover of nearly €1.4 billion. We also assess the future of the automotive sector, the backbone of European industry and currently threatened by China. Throughout the interview, Pujol constantly holds a pipe, an object that has been with him for seven decades.

Renault announced this Sunday that its CEO, Luca de Meo, is stepping down from the reins of the French automotive group after five years at the helm. The resignation will be formalized on July 15, and the brand has already begun the process of selecting a successor.

The British government announced on Monday a relaxation of sales targets for electric vehicles to help the automotive industry cope with tariffs, following the trade war unleashed by Donald Trump. This year, at least 28% of cars sold by manufacturers in the United Kingdom should be fully electric, not hybrids. However, in the first three months of 2025, the figure has not exceeded 21%. The percentage should increase each year until 2030, when a fine will be imposed for every gasoline or diesel car sold. And from 2035 onwards, all sales should be electric cars. Furthermore, the ban on hybrid vehicles has been diluted over time, having been postponed from 2030 to 2035.

On January 1 of that year, Moventia appointed a new president, replacing Miquel Martí with his brother, Josep Maria. The family business explained to ARA its challenges for the coming years, with a milestone it could achieve by 2025: doubling its turnover in just three years.

South Korean company ILJIN Materials, a manufacturer of battery components, will build a factory in Mont-roig del Camp (Baix Camp) which will employ 500 people. This is its first production plant in Europe, entailing a €600m investment. Catalan Enterprise and Employment minister Roger Torrent, who announced the new investment after meeting in Seoul with company executives, stressed the importance of the agreement, since ILJIN is "one of the only companies in the world" dedicated to the manufacture of copper foil for electric vehicle batteries and electronic products.

The Japanese car manufacturer Nissan will put an end to the production of vehicles in one of the two lines of the Zona Franca plant in Barcelona this Thursday, and it will close the other one on the 15th. Meanwhile, the workforce's future remains unclear, as negotiations for an industrial alternative that will occupy the Japanese company's facilities continue. Both the Spanish executive and the Generalitat are waiting for the Chinese Great Wall Motors (GWM) to answer the counterproposal they sent for the reindustrialization of the Nissan factory.

The Association of Automobile and Truck Manufacturers (Anfac), the sector's employers' association, has urged the President of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, to implement the Strategic Project for the Recovery and Economic Transformation (PERTE) for the automotive sector. The plan seeks to mobilise an investment of €24bn between 2021 and 2023, of which €4.3bn will come from the state. This PERTE depends on attracting European Next Generation funds for the sector, and among the projects it includes is manufacturing batteries for electric cars in Spain.

The temporary layoff plan (ERTE) that Seat will implement as of September 27 due to the lack of semiconductors will affect a minimum of 482 workers and a maximum of 1,276 daily, depending on the supply of these materials. These are the numbers that have been agreed by the management and the unions in the negotiation of the ERTE, the second at the car manufacturer to address the lack of microchips. It will last, in principle, until June 30, 2022, as reported by Seat sources.

The president of Seat, Wayne Griffiths, believes that the electric car project is not only Seat's but "the whole country's", and that for the battery production plant, in addition to partners, "regional support" is needed because it is not a project for a specific regional but for the whole of Spain.

Seat will manufacture electric cars in its Martorell plant. The president of the Volkswagen group, Herbert Diess, confirmed it this Friday during the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Catalan brand, chaired by King Felipe and the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, and which was not attended by any member of the Catalan Government. The event was marked by the pandemic, but also by future plans to make mobility more sustainable and digital.

New movements in the calendar of congresses of the city of Barcelona. The Fira de Barcelona has postponed the two major shows it had planned for May: Alimentaria, the most important event for the organisation after the Mobile World Congress, will be held in April 2022, after it was cancelled last year and was scheduled for this spring. The Automobile, on the other hand, will continue this year, but will be held two months later than usual, from 8 to 18 July.

The Swedish manufacturer of electric trucks and vans Inzile is a new contender to occupy the facilities that Nissan will vacate in Barcelona's Free Zone when it closes its Catalan plants next December. Inzile sees the Zona Franca as a good option to enter the southern European markets.