While Brazil and Chile have become leaders in emobility in South America, the other Southern Cone countries, Uruguay and Argentina, have lagged, although interest is fast growing.
In Argentina for example, according to the IEA’s global EV outlook 2026 update, sales reached around 9,000 during the first half of 2026 alone, compared to less than 2,200 across all of 2025, attributed principally to BYD’s entry to the market in 2025.
In Uruguay, the outlook indicates year-on-year sales increased 170% over the same period, although actual numbers aren’t specified.
In both countries, Chinese manufacturers, and BYD in particular, are dominating the market.
But this dominance is now set to be challenged by Tesla, which launched in Uruguay in July and is following in Argentina, so far with an employee search announcement.
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As the market leader in Chile since launching there in 2024 and with its name, Tesla could prove a strong contender in what are ultimately still very nascent markets.
As a measure of the initial interest at least, in Uruguay more than 200 vehicles (Model 3 and Model Y) were sold within the first 24 hours after the announcement of the vehicle prices, according to press reports.
EV challenges
One of the challenges is around the prices of buying and operating vehicles and in both countries there are tax incentives and the opportunity to move away from soaring fossil fuel prices and benefit from the lower electricity costs.
The second is the availability of the charging infrastructure.
In Uruguay the national electricity distributor UTE, which boasts the country has a 98% renewables share, is promoting EVs as the “truly sustainable” option and has driven a growing countrywide rollout of public charge points along with an app to locate and use them.
In Argentina the challenge is greater due to the size of the country, some 3,700km north to south and the low population densities in the rural areas away from the main urban centres.
The main charging infrastructure is concentrated in Buenos Aires city and the northern zones of greater Buenos Aires as well as along some of the main routes such as to the Atlantic coast, Rosario and Cordoba.
However, this is expected to grow. In June YPF entered into an agreement with Tesla to install a network of high speed chargers and also there is expected to be an expansion by private companies such as Chargebox.
It also has been suggested that the agreement with YPF could extend beyond EVs to stationary batteries for energy storage.
The only other country in South America where Tesla has a presence is Colombia, which it entered in November 2025, and in Latin America in Mexico as part of the company’s north American operations.
Latin America EV prospects
Latin America as a whole accounts for approximately 5% of global car sales.
Overall the region is classified as “newly emerging”, with EV sales more than doubling in the first half of 2026 compared to the same period of 2025 and increasing by around 130% when comparing March-June, according to the IEA update.
With strong market momentum and policy support driving the move to EVs in the region and coupled with similar trends in other markets is expected to lead to global EV sales reaching about 29% of the total in 2026.
Approximately 90% of the Latin American EV market has been captured by Chinese OEMs – significantly higher than the 10% of conventional vehicles – and these are likely to continue to dominate, even as companies such as Tesla continue to expand their footprint.
Grid challenges
Given the nascency of these markets, the focus has been very much on the charging infrastructure, rather than on issues such as vehicle-to-grid and flexibility. Furthermore, enabling infrastructure such as smart metering, while on the increase, is still far from widespread, except in limited locations such as Uruguay, which boasts being the first country in the region to achieve 100% rollout.
For example, in Chile Enel X has just announced an initiative with local partners to deliver an ‘electric highway’ with 600kW ultrafast chargers for heavy duty transport, enabling up to 12 vehicles to charge simultaneously. The initial phase is due to extend from Santiago south to Chillán.
But there are exceptions. In Brazil, electricity market reform opened the way for the development of aggregators and differentiated tariffs. In February 2026 the regulator Aneel authorised a V2G sandbox to Equatorial Alagoas to pilot ‘smart tariffs’ with bidirectional charging and the integration of solar PV and energy storage systems.
Approximately 400 residential, business and public participants are planned in the municipalities of Maceió and Marechal Deodoro in the northeastern coastal state of Alagoas.
