Uruguay favoring incentives over bans in push for electromobility

Uruguay wants to use incentives to boost electric mobility rather than bans on traditional transport forms in its path to sustainability.

The country is betting heavily on voluntary adoption by the public and private sectors, while the government is focused on expanding electric vehicle charging infrastructure. 

“We’re not going on the road of prohibition, but rather the road of incentives,” Sebastián Lattanzio, advisor to the energy ministry (MIEM) said during a sustainable mobility conference held by newspaper El País. 

One such incentive is an energy efficiency trust fund which, a year after an electric vehicle is purchased, will pay the owner the equivalent of the energy saved during that period compared to an internal combustion engine, Lattanzio said. 

The move can benefit both individual users and companies that acquire multiple units. 

Chile, another country that is advancing in electromobility, will begin to phase out the sale of internal combustion engines in 2035.

Uruguay’s state power utility UTE aims to increase the number of public charging points from 176 to 300 this year, and make sure that a third of the network comprises rapid charging stations, the executive coordinator of the firm's intelligent network project, Andrea Tutte, told the event. 

PRIVATE INCURSIONS

Private firms in Uruguay are already dealing with electric mobility, and some are planning to take the jump into green hydrogen.

One such case is construction firm Saceem, which is in the planning stage of a project to introduce 17 trucks powered by green hydrogen.

Instead of buying new trucks, the company will hire a firm to retrofit diesel trucks with green hydrogen engines, Saceem’s business development analyst Gonzálo López said during the same event.

On the side of manufacturers, Volvo is also working on developing green hydrogen trucks and expects Uruguay to be one of the first countries in the region to see their introduction alongside Chile and Brazil, according to Volvo Camiones product strategy manager for Latin America, Marco Mildenberg.