1st ICAI 2020

International Conference on Automotive Industry 2020

Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic

just over 3,600 electric cars in this country. The expectation is for further development in the next decade, when electric cars are expected to reach 2.5% of the total vehicles licensed in 2026, according to EPE data (FGV, 2019). Several challenges, however, still need to be overcome for electric cars to develop in Brazil. These challenges are also found in other countries: availability of recharge infrastructure; still high price and low autonomy of electric cars when compared to conventional cars conventional. But new business opportunities also arise from the advent of electric cars, for the various sectors involved: electrical, automotive and mobility (FGV, 2018). The electric car is not new in the automotive world. At the beginning of the automobile era, many cars were electric, but the low battery life and the advent of the internal combustion engine, in addition to the availability of fossil fuel at affordable prices, meant that the electric car was abandoned. In the 20 th century, its use was restricted to closed environments, such as airports and shopping malls: places where the emissions of exhaust gases from a conventional car are not acceptable. In the last ten years, several models of electric cars have become available on the market, with increasing autonomy. At the beginning of the next decade, battery technology is expected to evolve so that its capacity increases and its price decreases: two of the main factors to be overcome for mass dissemination of the electric car (FGV, 2018). Several countries in the world have been acting proactively to develop the electric car because they feel a certain urgency to decarbonize their economies: images from Beijing, wrapped in smog of pollution, come to mind when we remember the harmful effects of air pollution on society (Barbosa, 2016). Among all the incentives available for the dissemination of electric mobility, the electric cars are seen as the most effective. Electric cars are technologically better than conventional internal combustion vehicles. They are more efficient, have lower maintenance costs and are quieter (FGV, 2019). But, due to the already mentioned high cost of batteries, they are still more expensive, which makes the average consumer not to consider this alternative when purchasing a vehicle. In the US state of Colorado, for example, when buying an electric car, the consumer gets back up to $ 12,500. Soon, a Nissan Leaf, whose value suggested by the manufacturer is US $ 29,000, now costs US $ 16,500 (Nissan, 2020). Other measures that contribute to the development of electric cars in various countries around the world are of a regulatory nature, such as the establishment of rules to limit vehicle exhaust emissions, which indirectly benefit electric cars; ensuring access to restricted traffic areas, such as exclusive bus lanes, zero emission zones, exemption from parking fees and mandatory participation in vehicle rotation. Another issue also seen as a challenge to overcome for the massification of electric cars is the low battery autonomy. Continuing with the example of the Nissan Leaf, its autonomy is 172 km (battery with a capacity of 30kWh) (Nissan, 2020). A comparable car in Brazil, the Hyundai HB20 1.6, with a 50 liters tank, has a range of 580 km (Hyundai, 2020). A range of 172 km is highly consistent with the needs of a large part of the world’s urban population.

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