07/03/2024 – 7:20
With the announcement made yesterday by Stellantis – owner of the Fiat, Jeep, Peugeot, Citroën and RAM brands – that it will invest R$30 billion in Brazil by 2030, the volume of investments scheduled by automakers in the country reached the mark of R$95 billion by 2032, the biggest cycle in history.
The figures could be even higher. According to calculations by Anfavea, an entity that represents the automotive industry, the investment forecast reaches R$117 billion by 2029.
Two months ago, the Lula government launched a new support program for the automotive industry, Mover, whose regulation is expected this month. Successor to Rota 2030, which ended in December 2023, Mover – an acronym for Green Mobility – will release R$19.3 billion for automakers to produce safer, less polluting cars.
The program, which runs until 2028, is already taking effect, with investment announcements by automakers. This week alone, in two statements, the volume disclosed reaches R$41 billion, as, in addition to the R$30 billion from Stellantis, Toyota informed that it should also invest R$11 billion by 2030 to expand the supply of flex hybrid cars. . The Japanese automaker is a pioneer in this technology, combining a combustion engine powered by gasoline and ethanol with an electric one, in the Corolla, since 2019.
In the case of Stellantis, the investments are the result not only of Mover, but also of the extension of regional incentives, which benefit its factory in Pernambuco. In November, the governor of Pernambuco, Raquel Lyra (PSDB), said that maintaining the incentives – achieved by Stellantis after a struggle with Volkswagen, GM and Toyota in the processing of tax reform – ensured at least US$ 1.5 billion (around R$7.4 billion) in the Stellantis operation in the city of Goiana.
Mover aims to accelerate electrification in the country. Forecasts from consultancies such as A&M and Bright Consulting indicate that by the end of this decade, half of the cars sold in Brazil will have some degree of electrification. In the industry, however, there is still an assessment that it will be difficult to reach this mark.
This week, the vice-president of the Republic and minister of Development, Industry, Commerce and Services, Geraldo Alckmin, said that it is necessary to recover the industry.
“Brazil had an early deindustrialization process caused by high interest rates, exchange rates and taxes. We need green and sustainable initiatives to decarbonize the matrix and create an export industry.”
R$30 billion in decarbonization
By 2030, the Stellantis group will invest R$30 billion to launch 40 products, including new models and the renewal of the current portfolio, including its first hybrid cars produced in the country.
The company does not yet reveal how much it will invest in each brand, but ensures that the plan is exclusive to Brazil, where Stellantis produces in Betim (MG), Porto Real (RJ) and Goiana (PE). In Argentina, where the group has a Fiat and Peugeot factory, another R$2 billion is planned.
This year, the automaker ends a cycle, started in 2018, of R$16.2 billion. The new package, which starts next year, provides four new platforms (common bases for the production of different models). These platforms will allow the production of both flex hybrid cars – which combine an electric engine with a combustion engine, powered by ethanol and gasoline – and, in the future, purely electric ones, with initially imported batteries.
The company announced that it will invest in a hybrid technology called Bio-Hybrid, consisting of hybrid and plug-in hybrid systems (plug-in charging), in addition to also foreseeing the development of purely electric cars. The launch of the first flex hybrid is scheduled for the second half of this year.
The announcement of the investment was first made to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in the morning, at Palácio do Planalto, by the global CEO of Stellantis, the Portuguese Carlos Tavares. At the meeting, the executive praised the Mover program – successor to Rota 2030 -, which he classified as an “extremely intelligent” program. Later, in a press conference, Tavares considered that Latin America has become a stable region, and highlighted that Brazil is today a country that is making efforts to stabilize its economy, something fundamental for defining new investments.
Electrical
Stellantis aims to reach 2030 with purely electric cars representing 20% of its sales in Brazil. The electrification of the portfolio is included in the volume of investments announced yesterday.
But with the pace of adoption of electric cars moving more slowly in emerging markets than in developed economies, the scale of production is limited, compromising the industry's ability to offer new technologies at more affordable prices.
“We are currently witnessing a fragmentation of the world and a trend in which regionalization is increasingly stronger, which is not necessarily a good thing”, commented Tavares.
“Europeans want electric vehicles; Americans are still hesitating; here in Latin America we have flex fuel; obviously Africans will not be able to afford electric vehicles. Therefore, specific solutions are needed for each region”, added the executive.
The solution to popularize electric cars, Tavares added, would then be to sell the technology at a loss, which would compromise the financial health of companies, with a consequent risk of layoffs. On the other hand, subsidies for new technologies come up against greater government debt following extraordinary spending during the pandemic.
In this sense, the CEO of Stellantis said that Brazilian biofuel, combined with an electric engine in hybrid cars, will allow electrification to happen in a way that is accessible to the middle class, unlike in other markets. The flex engine represents, according to Tavares, a solution that is both “friendly” to the environment and affordable.
Among the technologies covered by Stellantis' new investments, in various stages of decarbonization, the automaker plans to improve propellants powered solely by ethanol. Worldwide, the group invests €50 billion in the energy transition.
The information is from the newspaper The State of S. Paulo.
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