Stand on Passeig de Gràcia for five minutes and you’ll notice something odd: the big open-top buses gliding past barely make a sound anymore. No diesel growl, no cloud of exhaust — just a soft hum and the click of the doors. Across Barcelona’s sightseeing routes, the same quiet shift is happening at once.
Barcelona City Tour, Now Running Quiet
The red double-deckers of Barcelona City Tour, run by Julià Travel, are being swapped for battery-powered ones bus by bus, with the whole fleet on track to go fully electric by 2029. Ride it today and there’s a good chance you’re already on one of the quiet ones.
Barcelona Bus Turístic, Same Story in Blue
A few streets over, Barcelona Bus Turístic — run by TMB, the same people who keep the city’s metro moving — is going through the same transformation. Its first electric double-deckers rolled out in 2026, with more joining through the year. Same two open-top floors, same panoramic views, just quieter under the hood.
Down at Street Level
Not every part of the city needs 44 seats to explore it. Hop into an electric tuk-tuk and get the same silent ride from somewhere much closer to the pavement — weaving past landmarks like the Arc de Triomf and through the Gothic Quarter’s narrow lanes, window down, wind in your hair.
Why It’s Worth Noticing
None of this happened overnight, and Barcelona isn’t pretending it did — two different operators, two fleets to renew, one narrow medieval city center that doesn’t make anything easy. What matters is the direction: however you choose to see Barcelona, there’s now a quieter, cleaner way to do it.
However you want to see the city, there’s now an electric way to do it. Ride Barcelona City Tour’s red buses, hop on Barcelona Bus Turístic, or get closer to the ground with an electric tuk-tuk tour.
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