Brazil EV Sales Report: 153% Growth in May Brings Latin America’s Largest Market to 13.5% EV Market Share!

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Latin America’s giant is waking up.

For long a regional leader (ranking consistently in the fourth position in our region), Brazil has shown long periods of relative stagnation followed by sudden bursts of growth triggered by the entrance of new, more competitive models in the country. However, this trend (constant for as long as the market provided data) seems to be breaking apart: since December 2025, we’ve seen high year-on-year as well as month-on-month growth, with a constant stream of records that has brought the market all the way up to 13.5% EV market share (7.7% BEV) in May 2026.

As we will see later on, I have reasons to believe this is not a coincidence, but a fundamental shift in the way Brazil’s market operates: long dependent in EV imports to sustain local demand, the country is now becoming a key EV supplier for its own market and for the entire region, providing a material and political basis for the transition and ending any possibilities of a tariff-based EV recession, as most recently seen in the US.

Let’s look at the numbers!

Market Overview

Brazil’s market is highly seasonal, with vehicle sales normally peaking at the end of the year and then going down, significantly, in January. EV sales follow the same pattern, meaning normally it takes a while to reach December sales in the following year: for example, in 2024 and 2025, it wasn’t until July that the record from the prior December was surpassed.

But 2026 is proving different. Already in March we saw EV sales reach the levels from December 2025, and by May, these have grown nearly 40% compared with that prior record, something that in previous years only happened an entire 12 months after the prior record.

Thanks to this, Brazil’s EV sales have reached an all-time high of almost 37,000 units, a gargantuan amount that, if my calculations are correct, would make Brazil the sixth or seventh largest EV market in the world, after China, the US, Germany, France, and the UK (and perhaps South Korea), quite the accomplishment if we take into account that in 2025 the country did not even make it into the top 10.

Even though PHEVs remain extremely popular, Brazil has been slowly pivoting towards purely electric vehicles: through 2025, BEVs accounted for only 45% of the EV market, whereas in May 2026 that amount has increased to 57%, and even through all of 2026 BEVs are now dominant, representing 54.5% of all EV sales.

EV market share has not grown as fast as one would’ve expected due to a significant increase in overall sales, but it still doubled in May, reaching an all-time high of 13.47%:

However, because the Brazilian vehicle market is booming, combustion-only vehicles (including ICEVs and HEVs) are still growing, surpassing a million sales (January through May) for the first time since 2019, 10% up from a year ago. The way the EV market is evolving, I expect this to be the last time this ever happens … but I’ve been too optimistic before. We will have to wait and see.

Brazil is a highly protected market, and, unsurprisingly, this means the undisputed leader is the one company building a massive amount of EVs on Brazilian soil — BYD, which got nearly 60% of the market for itself in May. Following come Geely (which has arrived in full strength with its EX2) and GWM. GM is the only non-Chinese brand to make an appearance, but it does so thanks to the Chevrolet Spark EUV, a rebranded Baojun Yep Plus.

Looking at models, we find BYD holding gold, silver, and bronze with the Dolphin Mini (Seagull), Song, and Dolphin models, all of them locally built. Following that comes the Geely EX2 (which gets nearly as many sales as the Dolphin), and then the GWM Haval H6.

Year to date, BYD still holds some 60% of the market, and the podium remains similar, only with GWM winning silver and Geely winning bronze. The only change in the top 10 is that Denza, BYD’s luxury brand which recently arrived in the country, is replaced by MG.

And looking at models, again, we see a very similar top 10, only replacing the recently arrived Geely EX2 in the 9^th position with the GWM Tank 300.

Brazil’s market is EVolving

When BYD decided to start producing passenger vehicles in Brazil, the efforts it undertook to reach its objective were substantial. The BYD Dolphin arrived in the country in 2023, just as work started at Brazil’s Camaçari plant (purchased from Ford). The Dolphin and later Dolphin Mini were both a success, but it would take BYD nearly two years to finally replace Chinese-made cars with local versions, just in time for the arrival of more stringent import rules and higher tariffs.

But the new kid in the block does not plan to go through all that waiting. Not only did Geely arrive with its EX2 at very competitive prices (BRL$123,800, or USD$24,400, which was nearly the price of a Dolphin Mini before recent price cuts), but now that the car has proven a success, it’s announced that local production will start later this year. The secret? An alliance with Renault, which will collaborate with Geely in locally producing the EX2 in its plant in Curitiba.

A small note here: Geely originally thought the EX5 EM-I would be the most successful model in Brazil and was forced to change plans once it was clear it’s the EX2 that will lead sales in the market.

Besides these models from Geely and BYD, we also see local production from GWM (Haval H6) and local assembly from GM (Chevrolet Spark EUV and Captiva EV). Next year, Stellantis is planning to start the assembly of the C10, and GAC will follow Geely’s example and start local production, though the models are yet to be announced. The Tank 300, in its flexi-fuel version (this is able to work on ethanol+electricity only) is also likely to start local production at some point in the future.

This means that a year from now, Brazil could be leading EV production in the region, holding four very competitive brands in an ever more developed EV ecosystem. With local production at this scale, and without significant public support in the form of subsidies, it’s unlikely anything could derail the transition in Latin America’s giant. More importantly: EVs are already only some 10–15% more expensive than ICEVs in the Brazilian market, and coming down, which means the economic incentives to switching are getting stronger, and the short-term economic penalty for doing so is getting smaller.

For these reasons, I believe the era of long periods of stagnation followed by sudden, explosive growth, is over in Brazil. From now on, we will see steady growth, slower sometimes, faster others, but consistent. The transition to zero-emissions mobility will follow through in Brazil and in all of South America.

Final thoughts

As is the case in Colombia, Legacy Auto still has some room to breathe: a booming market means there’s room for everyone, and traditional combustion vehicle sales continue to grow … for now. But with EVs already above 10%, with so many models coming, and with prices going down (the Dolphin Mini is already $1,800 cheaper than last year), it’s very likely that next year EV growth will start to eat into ICEV and HEV sales.

Legacy Auto must react before that … and in all fairness, it’s trying. Renault and Mitsubishi have guaranteed themselves a seat at the table by joining forces with Geely and GAC respectively in what we may call “Brazilian joint ventures;” Stellantis is bringing localized production for its Leapmotor C10, and VW just announced the arrival of the ID.4 (77 kWh version), even though the prices are yet to be announced. The ID.4, from what I can find, was already available for leasing and for fleets, but not for sale to private customers.

Still, this is unlikely to be enough. If Brazil keeps growing at more than half the speed of Colombia or Uruguay (and, historically, it has), it’s almost certain that the combustion-only market will shrink significantly, probably by at least 25% by the end of the decade. This already happened back in the mid 2010’s after commodities prices crashed, and it brought significant suffering to automakers, some of which had to end production in the country, which in practice means losing more sales … only this time, it will be permanent.

But for those of us who care about the future of our planet, the fact that the largest market in Latin America, the one accounting for 40% of regional sales, is pivoting fast to EVs, could not be better news.