00:00Are Costa Rica and Brazil in the fast lane when it comes to e-mobility?
00:06Brazil is Latin America's largest electric vehicle market.
00:09Now, after years in the fast lane, Brazilian cities are looking to hop aboard too, by electrifying
00:14their city bus fleets.
00:17Meanwhile, sets of laws from the last decade are hoping to show that removing economic
00:21barriers in Costa Rica could be the power that this small country needs when it comes
00:26to revving up its battery electric engines.
00:29Costa Rica is a small country in Latin America.
00:32We'll talk more about how that country increased electric vehicle uptake in a moment.
00:37But first, I want to show you one of the rarest cars in Costa Rica.
00:44A converted electric car.
00:48It used to be a petrol vehicle, before being converted by these two startup founders.
00:55César González-Soles and Emmanuel Castro.
00:58Besides showing that a conversion like this is possible, the co-founder's other goal
01:03is making the case that conversions of existing fleets for companies or utilities makes economic
01:07sense.
01:08They say converting can be cheaper than buying a new EV.
01:14Reduced prices puts us in a sector of the market where there are people who may not
01:19be able to buy a new vehicle, but they can opt for a converted electric vehicle.
01:26As car enthusiasts themselves, the goal was to allow people the freedom to renew the vehicles
01:30they already have.
01:32But the pair say it's difficult to do these conversions and takes time.
01:36A conversion can take about three or four months depending on the vehicle, how complex
01:41it is, all that weight distribution and design that we have to do.
01:44So it's a whole study.
01:46Sourcing parts to fit the custom builds is also an issue, but the co-founders hope that
01:51by showing off the handful of cars that they've already converted over the last year and a
01:55half, including the yellow Mini Cooper we saw earlier, that they can convince companies
01:59and cities to convert their existing fleets instead of buying new.
02:04It's a fraction of the price.
02:06If you compare cars like the Mini Cooper, it costs around $13,000.
02:11Now a Mini that comes straight out of the factory, right now, that costs between $50,000
02:16and $60,000 here.
02:21Converting existing petrol cars into fully electric ones is just one innovation.
02:26But back to those laws we told you about earlier.
02:30The way the law works is there are four different price brackets that each have different discounts.
02:35A car like this one gets 100% of its general sales, excise and customs value tax waived.
02:42That's because the Geely Geometry C starts at $27,900 USD.
02:46But 0% of those taxes get waived for values above $60,000, like for this car, the Lexus
02:52RZ450E, which falls into that most expensive bracket.
02:56The values between those two categories receive staggered reductions.
03:00This is part of the Costa Rican government's attempts to remove financial barriers to make
03:04buying new electric vehicles more appealing.
03:09We know other countries have restrictions or more taxes on combustion vehicles and punish
03:13that decision to purchase one.
03:16Not in Costa Rica.
03:19This is Silvia Rojas.
03:21She's the president of the Latin American Association for Sustainable Mobility.
03:25Other perks include free parking in some areas and waiving annual road permit fees.
03:30But how well has it worked?
03:32Reportedly, Costa Rica's market share of electric vehicles is high.
03:36We had trouble confirming official figures, but one trade magazine, Alatech, says the
03:41electric vehicle market share there is high, in 2022 between 7.3 and 7.5%.
03:50Compare that to official figures from Canada, the US, Colombia and Brazil for the same year.
04:01When the law passed in 2018, revenues in Costa Rica from the electric vehicle market were
04:05nearly $14 million USD.
04:08But the market's rising, and Statista Market Insights estimates it will be worth $321 million
04:13by 2028.
04:14Small compared to some of its neighbors, true, but not bad for a country like Costa Rica.
04:20But as the case here shows, there are plenty of people who can't afford or don't want to
04:25buy their own EVs.
04:26So how do we electrify their transport?
04:35Enter the Humble Bus.
04:40Just a few kilometers outside of Sao Paulo is a production site for the company Eletra.
04:45This Brazilian company has been making electric trolleybuses for decades, but in recent years
04:51they added 100% electric battery buses to their catalog.
04:55These buses are already on the streets of the neighboring megacity, Sao Paulo.
05:01We have 85% of the pure electric market.
05:05That's Aida Oliveira, the executive director of Eletra.
05:09She couldn't join us on site, so we hopped on a call.
05:12She knows the buses her company produces are more expensive, so that initial investment
05:16has to be worth it for city officials in the long run.
05:21If we put buses that cost three times more than diesel buses and they last less than
05:2515 years, we will undermine the transport system not only in Brazil, but in Latin America.
05:31These buses must last at least 15 years in the system.
05:38Making sure buses last is critical here in Sao Paulo, where the city banned the purchase
05:44of new petrol-powered buses in 2022.
05:53In Sao Paulo, the public transport system is composed of 12,000 vehicles that run daily
05:58all over the city.
05:59They transport an average of 7 million passengers.
06:03Paris, for comparison, has just over 2 million residents and 4,700 public buses, and earned
06:10the title of best city in Europe for public transport last year.
06:16But in Sao Paulo, which is 15 times the size of the French city of Lights, and with nearly
06:21six times as many people, buses are a major part of the transportation network.
06:26It's going to be a heavy lift to meet the ambitious goal of increasing its EV fleet
06:30to 20%.
06:34Reducing noise and pollution are additional benefits.
06:36The hitting national targets to reduce CO2 in line with the Paris Climate Accord is a
06:41factor.
06:42And Brazil, like many Latin American nations, has a relatively green electricity grid.
06:48In Latin America, 65% of electricity comes from green and renewable sources.
06:56Andres Reboedo is the executive secretary of the Latin American Energy Organization.
07:03There are countries where renewables account for nearly 100% of electricity.
07:07Paraguay, Uruguay, and at some hours of the day, Chile.
07:14Many of the countries in this region have large hydro projects and other green energy
07:18sources all contributing to a cleaner energy matrix, making the switch to electric vehicles
07:24more impactful.
07:25But this is not a simple swap over.
07:28For one, electric buses are more expensive.
07:38It has a high initial investment cost, and that's precisely because of the new technology.
07:47Before the pandemic, Miranda estimates the initial investment was twice as much as a
07:50petrol bus.
07:51Now?
07:52We have observed that the battery electric vehicle was costing three times more than
08:00a traditional diesel vehicle.
08:03He adds that new technology has also meant adoption bottlenecks, as infrastructure like
08:08electric charging garages have to be installed.
08:12There has to be all the necessary logistics, because today the logistics of diesel is much
08:17more consolidated.
08:19That's because the garages are where a great volume of fuel is consumed by each of the
08:23buses.
08:24Today, the garage itself, the concessionaire company itself, they have their own path and
08:28tanks the large distributors buy and fill them.
08:35Cost and infrastructure.
08:37These are also problems faced by customers when buying personal vehicles around the world.
08:41Beyond transport, the entire city ecosystem has to be prepared.
08:46While Eletra claims it has big market share in electric buses in Brazil, they're not
08:50the only players in the game.
08:52BYD, a well-known personal EV manufacturer, also produces electric buses, and they're
08:57now going hard on expansion into Latin America.
09:02Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz is actually doing business with Eletra, where they are producing
09:08electric bus chassis like these in Brazil for companies like Eletra and others.
09:15The company says it already has 250 chassis circulating in Sao Paulo.
09:20We believe it's a decade of the bus.
09:22That's Achim Puschert.
09:24He's the president at Mercedes-Benz Brazil and the CEO of Mercedes-Benz Latin America.
09:29So we see a stronger need in public transportation, and we expect it also here in Latin America
09:36to grow significantly towards 2030.
09:40And I think in general, you have to understand like with one bus, you can capture 50 cars.
09:47While the personal EV market relies heavily on imports, Puschert says increasing domestic
09:52production for electric buses will be important.
10:00I think it's a great opportunity, though, that maybe is missed at the moment, because
10:04if you have natural resources that allow hydrogen production, or if you have the ingredients
10:10for lithium, like for instance, Argentina, for battery production, obviously that could
10:15also stimulate to do it locally.
10:17In the end, I believe Brazil or Argentina, they will not win if you import all the components
10:22or the vehicles, but you should rather see that you develop the local industry and then
10:27utilize the natural resources in other countries.
10:31Just like with personal electric vehicles, increasing domestic solutions is seen as critical
10:36for the future production of e-buses.
10:41So are Costa Rica and Brazil in the fast lane when it comes to e-mobility?
10:47Government policy in Costa Rica is one contributing factor to an uptake in EV purchasing, while
10:52startups like Electroconversiones de Costa Rica hope that they can push a different bracket
10:57of car owner to be able to sport green license plates like these.
11:02Meanwhile, megacities in Brazil are investing more in electric buses, which capitalize on
11:07rich and diverse green energy sources.
11:10But even though the speed is picking up, the road is a long one.
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