The contribution of electromobility to the mitigation of climate change is considered essential by specialists, if we take into account that currently 23% of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions come from transportation in general and that, Within that spectrum, 40% corresponds to automotive transport.
However, the results of the transition to alternative modes of mobility will not be perceived immediately, but will have to wait around two decades, because for many years the majority of the world’s vehicle fleet will continue to be made up of vehicles. internal combustion.
“It is going to be a very, very slow process, regardless of the fact that today, for example, 100% of the vehicles sold are electric,” warned the economist from the National University of San Martín (Unsam), Gabriel Michelena, pointing out the distinction between flow and stock.
In an evaluation of the study on electromobility in Latin America that she carried out together with Patricia Iannuzzi and Magdalena Barafani for the Latin American and Caribbean Integration Institute of the Integration and Trade sector of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB-Intal), Michelena noted that ” “We will not have much of the fruits in terms of GHG reduction until around 2040 or 2050.”
“This is directly related to the stock of cars, reducing the proportion of conventional or internal combustion vehicles in the total is going to take time,” he stressed in statements to Télam, while indicating that, in addition to the manufacturing and sales of new vehicles , “there are some alternatives that are being explored that would allow the reconversion of some internal combustion vehicles, with novel technologies.”
In this regard, he admitted that “many times what one assumes in 20 or 30 years is quite speculative, but the global trend is expected to continue, in line with the objective of decarbonizing important sectors of the economy, such as electricity, construction and, in this case, the automotive industry.
Regarding the role that Latin America has, he stated that “although we are starting late, it is expected to progressively converge to sales levels like those of the central countries, with a greater penetration of electric vehicles in the total supply, although we expect make that process slower.”
In that sense, he pointed out that “there are transition costs, there may be tensions in productive terms with the conventional vehicle industry, especially labor.”
In a scenario described as “optimistic”, Michelena estimated in the IDB-Intal study that Argentina would reach a stock of 300,000 electric vehicles by 2030, and would become the fourth country in Latin America behind Mexico, Brazil and Chile.
But the region’s lag behind the progress of other countries will have its cost, since a large part of these stocks will come from imports, to the point that the same report warned that all Latin American countries will have deficit trade balances in terms of electric vehicles. .
Source: Ambito
