WHY CHILE’S PUBLIC TRANSPORT PLANS COULD BE A BREATH OF FRESH AIR
▶ Santiago aims to tackle its notorious smog problems by rolling out all-electric buses, lorries, cars and taxis
Amassive cargo ship docked in the Chilean port of San Antonio at the end of November, carrying it its belly the first 100 electric buses from China that Chileans hope will revolutionise their public transport system.
Chile’s ambitious plan to face down its capital Santiago’s notorious smog problem includes the roll-out of electric scooters, cars and taxis, as well as lorries for use in the mining industry.
Mineral-rich Chile – which is not only the world’s largest copper producer but also the second-largest producer of lithium, a key component in electric vehicle batteries – aims to increase the number of electric vehicles tenfold by 2022.
Energy minister Susana Jimenez said the government wanted electric vehicles to account for 40 per cent of Chile’s private fleet and 100 per cent of public transportation on the roads by 2050.
The initiative puts Chile at the forefront of clean mobility in Latin America as well as among developing countries worldwide.
But it represents a significant challenge given the persistently high price of electric vehicles and the paucity of charging points in the country. Chile has just 40 public charging stations – half of them in Santiago, according to the energy ministry.
Enthusiasts of the new technology prefer to focus on the pluses of clean motoring, such as the reduction in noise and air pollution as well as lower fuel costs. The operation and maintenance costs of an electric bus are also around 70 per cent less than those of a diesel engine, according to Chile’s Ministry of Transport.
“Chile will be second only to China as a nation with the greatest quantity of electric buses in the world,” Chilean President Sebastian Pinera said at the start of November, when the government took delivery of six BMW i3 electric cars destined for ministerial use.
Studies by McKinsey bear his claims out – of the 385,000 electric buses on the road worldwide last year, 99 per cent are in China.
The Netherlands and Britain have more than 300 electric buses each, but they are spread among several cities rather than concentrated in one, as will be the case in Santiago.
For electric car drivers, the problem will be charging their vehicles, in what is at best described as a nascent electric automotive sector.
But Chile is not unique in this regard.
Like many nations that have been slower to add sales of electric cars, Australia is also lagging behind on development of public charging networks, making it more difficult – and typically slower – for EVs to access some parts of a road system that spans about 875,000 kilometres.
Of about 600,000 public charging points installed globally, more than half are in China – the world’s top EV market, according to Bloomberg. That dominance is even more pronounced when it comes to direct current fast chargers – equipment that is capable of topping up car batteries in minutes rather than hours.
There is about one fast DC charger for every five EVs in China, and about one for every 13 of the vehicles in Japan, the country with the second-largest number of the units.
“Public charging infrastructure is essential,” said Paul Sernia, chief product officer at Tritium, based in Brisbane, Australia, a producer of fastcharging points that has exported equipment to about 26 countries, including the US and Germany.
“Without the infrastructure in place, the adoption of the vehicles won’t increase, or won’t happen,” he said.
With plans to rapidly boost their electric line-ups, car makers are working to encourage expansion of fast recharging infrastructure to help boost customer confidence.
In New Zealand, adoption of EVs has ballooned since the instalment of a fast-charging network from 2016, government data show.
Car makers “recognise that
The initiative puts Chile at the forefront of clean mobility in Latin America as well as among developing countries worldwide
public fast charging is critical to selling EVs”, said Cathy Zoi, chief executive of EVgo Services in Los Angeles, which operates about a third of fast chargers in the US and has partnerships with companies including Hyundai and Nissan.
In Europe, an alliance of car makers including Volkswagen, Daimler, Ford and BMW is working with Tritium to add charging stations about every 120 kilometres along the continent’s highways. Tesla is continuing to expand its own global network of fast charging points. Energy producers and fuel pump makers are also backing the strategy. Oil giant Total in September acquired an operator of EV points, while US charging station operator ChargePoint this month raised funding from investors including Chevron.
The high costs of fast chargers and low levels of utilisation mean there’s a challenging business model, at least for now.
Fast chargers can cost about $45,000 to $60,000 a unit and need to be used about eight to 12 times a day to break even.
“Some electric vehicle infrastructure projects will need both public and private support,” according to Ms Zoi.
The Chilean capital will have
200 electric buses in total, the government said. The 100 that recently arrived were manufactured by Chinese company BYD Electronic International, financed by the local subsidiary of the Italian power utility Enel Generacion Chile and will be operated by Metbus, a private Chilean company, according to Reuters.
Another 100 due to be added to the Santiago fleet are being financed by French energy generation firm Engie Energia Chile and manufactured by China’s Zhengzhou Yutong Bus.
Other Latin American countries are catching on.
Mexico City has a booming market in electric scooters and bicycles. It also plans to introduce between 300 and 500 electric buses.
Peru has slashed the import tax on electric vehicles to zero, while Colombia is converting public diesel buses to unspecified, cleaner engines.
If the present fleets of buses and taxis spread across 22 Latin American cities were replaced by electric vehicles today, by 2030 almost $64bn in fuel would have been saved, and 300 million tonnes less of carbon dioxide equivalent would have been pumped into the air, according to a UN study.
Chile offers electric vehicles exemptions from environmental tax and traffic restrictions, as well as subsidies and fasttrack licensing to taxi drivers who switch to more energy efficient cars, the Ministry of Energy said.
The government is also encouraging its mining industry to look at using electric lorries, with state copper miner Codelco recently announcing a pilot scheme to introduce them. But the electric vehicle industry remains nascent across Latin America, partly due to the high costs.
A BMW i3 equivalent to those being tested by ministers would cost about $60,000 in Chile, prohibitively expensive for most motorists in a country where the average monthly wage is $410.
Matias Asun, Greenpeace’s national director, said at the present rate of electric vehicles penetration, the government would have to take dramatic action to meet its 2050 goal.
“Our question to the government is this: from what year will it no longer allow combustion engines to be sold in Chile?” he said.