MADRID, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Sales of electric and hybrid vehicles in Spain rose by 82.8 percent during the first nine months of 2017, according to data published by the Spanish Association of Automobile manufacturers (ANFAC) on Wednesday.
ANFAC report that a total of 46,000 of these vehicles were sold between January and September, with 5,160 sales recorded in September.
The September sales of electric cars (958) were up 180.1 percent on September 2016, with 90 percent of the vehicles being private cars. Meanwhile a total of 5,342 electric vehicles were sold in the first nine months of the year.
The September sales of hybrid cars totalled 4,202 in September, bringing the total to 40,644 for 2017 so far; 85.8 percent up on sales during the same period last year.
ANFAC highlighted that "electric and hybrid vehicles are part of the future and also a reality offering sustainable, clean and secure mobility."
Although the organization accepts that "Spain still has a way to go before reaching higher levels of alternative vehicles as high in other European countries, these numbers are slowly increasing."
Wednesday also saw Madrid City Hall confirm that the emblematic Gran Via will be permanently closed to private vehicles at the end of the year and turned into a pedestrian walkway with just two lanes of traffic; one for buses and bicycles and another for authorized vehicles.
The street was closed as an experiment in the run up to Christmas last year and the hope is that the measure will see a reduction in traffic of over 400 percent from the current 50,000 vehicles on a usual day to around 10,000.
