The Brazilian automotive market: challenges for the growth of electric and hybrid vehicles

Abstract

The auto industry and related activities are responsible for a billion dollar financial movement worldwide and are not free from pressure often imposed by some sectors of society. Among these pressures there is the concern with the consumption of fossil fuels, which have a significant impact on the quality of the environment (air pollution, climate change, oil spills, and the generation of toxic waste) due to the production of these fuels. In Brazil, facing concerns about the emission of polluting gases, there have arisen several ways to combat this environmental pollution, such as the implementation of public policies aimed at increasing the efficiency of vehicles and diversifying the use of alternatives to fossil fuels (ethanol and biodiesel), and the use of vehicles with smaller internal combustion engines (which are lighter and more economical in terms of fuel consumption and facilitate the recovery of braking energy, formerly dissipated in the form of heat). However, initiatives are still rare in Brazil that aim at the spread of electric and hybrid vehicles, probably due to reasons such as taxation and incentive policies which do not stimulate the quantity of these vehicles in circulation.