In May, BydBydBYD Auto is a Chinese car manufacturer who became the leading EV manufacturer in the world in 2023, competing with Tesla for market share and global attention.Read moreThe largest car carrier arrived in Brazil with 7,300 new electric vehicles. The shipment, in combination with two other large shipments a few days later, represented the largest export operation of the company to Brazil.
BYD, who recently caught up with Tesla to become the top seller of EVs worldwide, made little hassle about his Brazilian milestone. But the shipments were welcomed by Brazilians who wanted to beat rising rates at imported EVs.
Since the launch in Brazil in 2015, BYD has grown at a rapid pace: the turnover has risen 327% between 2024 and 2023. The expansion is largely due to the country's zero loading policy for EV input. But the future of the company is uncertain because Brazil has implemented a progressive tax program for imported EVs, starting at 10% in January 2024 and is expected to reach 35% in July 2026. The rate currently at 18% and will be supported next month by the powerful Brazilian car lobby.
Tax-free EV-Import “in favor of ready-made imported cars arriving in Brazil, which distort the logic and natural order of the Brazilian market,” told Igor Calvet, president of Anfavea, an industrial group that largely told gas driven cars, to the rest of Brazil. “It takes away all the potential of car manufacturers and their Brazilian employees.”
BYD did not respond to questions from the rest of the world on his sales strategy in Brazil.
Anfavea has said that companies such as BYD have an “unfair advantage” towards local car manufacturers, which are confronted with high operational costs and local levies. Under its pressure, the government weighs the possibility of promoting the final date of the implementation of the tax until July, so that consumers came to BYD dealers before the prices rise.
Luiz Fernando Suzarte, an electrical engineer in Brasíilia, bought a BYD Song Pro earlier this year, prior to the planned increase in rates in July. “There is a certain hurry to seize this window of opportunities,” Suzarte told Rest of World. “I took a lot of teasing ruines, looking for the most economic car, and between the most popular, BYD won for the cost benefits.”
327%
The 1-year increase in BYD sales
With its tax on imported EVs, Brazil follows the US playbook, which imposes a 100% rate on Chinese EVs, and the EU, where the electric vehicles of BYD's battery are subject to a levying of 27%. But the progressive rate of Brazil is a biter in Latin -America, where countries such as Argentina, Costa Rica and Colombia have reduced EV rates or fully eliminated in their urge for clean energy.
The US and Europe, with their established car industry, are the best markets for EVs, according to a report from the International Energy Agency. But emerging markets in Asia and Latin -America are taking on EVs at a faster pace. The sale of EV is expected to exceed more than 20 million units worldwide this year, with one of the four cars sold that are sold as electric. Chinese brands accounted for 10% of global EV and plug-in hybrid sales last year, according to Energy Transition Consultancy RHO Motion. That figure is expected to grow.
In Brazil, the number of imported vehicles sold increased by 18.7% between January and April, while the sale of vehicles produced in their own country grew by 0.2%, according to data collected by Anfavea. In March and April alone, the country's car market grew 16% exclusively from the sale of imported cars, while the sale of locally made cars 'practically tied'.
With the aim of selling half of his cars outside of an increasingly competitive Chinese market and under pressure to locate production in different countries, BYD adds production and assembly units worldwide. But in Brazil the company has confronted various challenges.
Last year, BYD started building a large factory in Camaçari, a urbannament for decades with Ford Motor. In December, the authorities said they had found 163 people who worked in 'slavery -like circumstances', and have been sued for $ 45.3 million since then. The company recently announced that it had pushed his roll -out of Brazilian vehicles back from the mid -2025 until the end of the year.
“What we want is that there is no longer a delay in their beginning of (local) production,” Calvet said. The tax is intended to put pressure on the company to start its Brazilian operation. This will lead to job creation and byd from the subject to the same tax requirements that other car manufacturers are confronted in the country, he said.
Brazil is the largest market for EVs in Latin -America. A recent study by the Latin -American energy organization, an intergovernmental body, estimates that half of the EVs are on the continent in Brazil. By the end of 2024, more than 237,000 EVs were sold in the country, with an annual growth of 187% compared to the previous year. The organization estimates that the number of EVs in Brazil will reach almost 1 million in 2030.
Chinese EVs are already good for no less than 90% of the active electromobility fleet of Brazil, according to a report from Oxford Energy Forum.
187%
The 1-year rise in EV sales in Brazil in 2024
Brazil is not only an important consumer market, but also a huge producer. The main objective of the rates is “to stimulate local production, to promote a gradual nationalization of the country's own supply chain for electromobility,” says Edgar Barassa, a researcher of electromobility and public policy at the University of Campinas in São Paulo.
“Brazil is at a crossroads,” Barassa told the rest of the world. “Or it positions itself as an important actor in the emerging supply chains for electromobility and clean energy – generating jobs, innovation and technological sovereignty – or it is limited to importing technologies, losing opportunities in a new global industrial cycle.”
In Vitória da Conquista, an owner of the northeastern state, an owner of the solar panat Bruno Peter Cardoso recently made a local WhatsApp group for new EV buyers. There has recently been a peak in new members, said Cardoso, who bought a plug-in hybrid BYD in 2023. He would then want to buy a fully electric BYD.
“People rush to EVs because they finally realize how much better they are,” he said. “It changes your conception of things.”