A review of challenges for the electric car adoption in México

Abstract:

Air pollution is a major concern in most populated cities in México. The introduction of a Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV), or a plug-in hybrid, on these population centers could help solve the problem, but it is necessary to address some issues that make it difficult to implement a widespread deployment.
We review the most urging obstacles that arise, like the high cost of the ZEV's and hybrid vehicles. Also, there is lack of infrastructure for Electric Vehicles, as only a small number of public charging stations exist and the national electric grid lacks the capacity to support the insertion of large number of EV's into public roads. Another factor to add is that México is a major international manufacturer of Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) vehicles, so this is a negative incentive to transition to ZEV’s.
Even if all these hurdles are overcome in the short term, there is a big obstacle ahead: the lack of the mexican federal government support to EV’s and hybrids vehicles. While countries like the USA, and the majority of countries in the EU give tax incentives to owners of ZEV’s, and in some places there is a tax refund for purchasing a ZEV, in México there’s no such program.