Curitiba's electric vehicle initiative

The city of Curitiba realized that it's urban planning and infrastructure, having been developed around mostly vehicles that are almost all entirely privately owned, caused immense traffic problems that generated high amounts of greenhouse gas pollution that concerned the government. The city needed to curb this so it sought to encourage the public to make the switch from fossil fuel based vehicles to electric vehicles but was met with hesitation about their reliability.

The Curitiba city government, in partnership with Renault-Nissan do Brazil, decided to encourage the public to switch by changing part of its bus fleet to electric cars and minibuses. Along with this initiative, they have also installed ten charging stations for these vehicles in the city, where the electricity is provided for by a nearby hydroelectric dam.

The city government noted that the change has dramatically reduced CO2 emissions, brought down fuel costs significantly, and reduced noise pollution. The success of this strategy for reducing emissions has been embedded into a wider strategy to integrate more sustainable mobility services in Curitiba into an intelligent city network, including an expansion of the bus transit system and the implementation of new smart mobility services. The city has also noted that EVs have been 'demystified' and their acceptance has notably improved.