Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López laid out his argument for ride-hailing in October 2020, while lockdowns had Madrid’s private-hire fleet sitting in garages. Auro, which counts him as a founding member and leading shareholder according to his own résumé, had more than 2,000 vehicles parked for lack of demand, he said at the time.

He framed the long-term case for shared cars as arithmetic. “Instead of having 100 cars with 100 people, it’s having 10 cars doing the rides,” Alejandro Betancourt López said in that interview.

The Arithmetic Alejandro Betancourt López Laid Out in 2020

Personal car ownership, in his view, had already hit its high point. Growing urban populations and changing regulation would push cities toward shared rides and more efficient public transit, he argued, cutting both the cost of each trip and the pollution that comes with a car for every commuter. The private car sold to a single owner was the product he expected to lose ground, and he said regulators had their own reasons to favor fewer cars carrying more riders.

Auro was preparing to move from license holder to operator when he gave the interview. A ride-hailing app sat in beta for anyone to download, and he said the plan was to grow in Spain first and then compete across Europe once the pandemic eased. Operators able to carry their costs through the shutdown, he predicted, would come out holding the largest share of the market. “We always want to have an edge, and we’re looking how we can be vertically integrated,” he said of the app.

Madrid’s Fleet in 2026

Madrid, where Alejandro Betancourt López’s Auro built its fleet, now has about 9,570 active VTC licenses, the permits that let a car with a driver carry paying passengers, against 16,026 taxis, or roughly three private-hire permits for every five cabs. A VTC license in the capital trades for roughly €180,000, and Auro alone employs nearly 5,000 workers.

Uber, which entered Madrid in 2014, plans a robotaxi pilot there before the end of 2026. WeRide will provide the self-driving system and Moove Cars, part of the Amovo group, which holds more than 2,500 VTC authorizations, will run the vehicles. Madrid will host Uber’s first robotaxi program in continental Europe, after pilots in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Safety operators will ride along on every trip at first, and Madrid’s city government has approved the operation. Human supervision is expected to continue until well into 2027, according to the same report. Merca2 describes Moove Cars as the country’s largest VTC fleet. Uber also holds 30% of Auro, the operator linked to Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt.