Brazil’s fast-growing EV fleet, Chinese OEM investment and new lifecycle rules are exposing a cultural gap in automotive recycling. Luiz Henrique Lopes Vilas and Igor Byrro Vilas argue that Brazil’s main challenge is not technical capacity, but embedding traceable daily habits across dealerships, recyclers and manufacturers before EV battery volumes accelerate.
Luiz Henrique Lopes Vilas, PhD, Director at Ouro Verde, and Igor Byrro Vilas of the Getulio Vargas Foundation discuss how Brazil’s fast-growing electric vehicle market, expanding Chinese manufacturer presence and new lifecycle legislation are reshaping automotive recycling. They argue that the country’s biggest challenge is not technical capability, but building the operational culture, traceability and everyday practices needed to manage EV batteries and materials effectively.
In 2022, one of the authors presented a case study at the 21st International Automotive Recycling Congress (IARC) in Switzerland, documenting how JR Diesel, Latin America’s largest heavy-vehicle dismantler, had transformed end-of-life processing into a traceable and commercially viable operation. The conclusion was not that Brazil lacked technical capacity. It was that the country’s real constraint lay elsewhere: in the absence of operational culture connecting recyclers, car dealerships and manufacturers into a functioning ecosystem.
Brazil’s EV growth creates a new recycling test
At the 25th IARC in Hamburg this March, we returned with co-authored research and a sharper thesis. Electrified vehicle sales in Brazil rose from 93,927 units in 2023 to 223,912 in 2025, a tenfold increase relative to the overall automotive market. The cumulative fleet now approaches 600,000 vehicles. BYD commands 75% of fully electric sales and, together with GWM, has captured 7.2% of the total automotive market in three years. Its factory in Camarçari, Bahia, the largest BYD complex outside Asia, began operations in late 2025; an R&D centre near Rio de Janeiro’s Galeão airport followed shortly after. Brazil’s MOVER programme (Law 14.902/2024) now requires manufacturers to demonstrate, by 2027, that 80 to 95 per cent of vehicle materials are recyclable or reusable, with carbon-footprint accountability across the product lifecycle.
The recycling infrastructure built over decades for conventional vehicles was designed for a different machine. Workshops that once managed lubricant oil, filters and ferrous scrap now receive high-voltage traction battery packs with distinct chemical and logistical parameters. LFP cells, favoured by Chinese manufacturers for thermal stability, and NMC chemistries demand separate handling protocols.
Specialised transport licensing and contracts with lithium-certified logistics operators remain far from standard across dealership networks. Yet the deeper problem is not the technical gap. It is the behavioural one.
Why traceability depends on operational culture
Over three decades of applied research across more than 1,000 Brazilian dealerships, encompassing 707,200 documented self-inspections between 2020 and 2025, we have observed a consistent pattern. Environmental initiatives fail not because companies lack regulations or collection services. They fail because correct procedures never become routine. A mechanic who has discarded oil filters into general waste for ten years is not acting negligently; he is exercising an entrenched habit that no checklist alone can override. Installing a separator tank takes an afternoon. Ensuring it is used correctly, week after week, by different people under competing pressures, requires something more deliberate: a structured programme of behavioural change that redesigns triggers, routines and feedback loops until the new practice becomes automatic. Research on habit formation confirms this consolidation typically requires 60 to 90 days of consistent repetition.
The AutoVerde PÉROLA Methodology was built on this principle. Its six pillars, People, Effluents, Waste, Oils, Legislation and Immediate Action, constitute a behavioural architecture designed to work with the brain rather than against it.
The evidence suggests this approach succeeds. Dealerships that completed the 90-day cycle showed measurable improvement in compliance indicators and, crucially, sustained those gains without external intervention. The first Brazilian dealerships to achieve Gold-level Zero Waste Recognition, Grupo Cometa (Hyundai, Mato Grosso) and Grupo Toriba (Renault, São Paulo), reached certification within two months, not because electric vehicles forced their hand, but because years of weekly self-inspection had already embedded the culture. When EV-specific requirements arrived, absorption was seamless. Those who skipped the fundamentals now face the challenge of learning conventional waste management and complex battery logistics simultaneously.
Chinese OEMs and battery manufacturing raise the stakes
The pace of change continues to accelerate. According to Brazilian press reports, Chinese energy firm Windey announced in June 2026 an R$100 million investment to build a battery storage factory in Camaçari, Bahia, targeting an annual capacity of 1.5 GWh by 2027. Battery manufacturing is arriving on Brazilian soil; the question of who manages these batteries at the end of life is no longer theoretical.
Our argument, then, is not merely that Brazil faces a deadline; it is that a proven path exists. The country that already recycles 99 per cent of its lead-acid batteries and 566 million litres of used lubricant oil has demonstrated it can build effective systems when method and culture align. The opportunity in recovering lithium, cobalt, and nickel from spent EV batteries is real and economically significant. Capturing it begins not with new technology, but with the operational habits that make traceability possible in the first place.
The Authors
Luiz Henrique Lopes Vilas, PhD, Florida Christian University – Orlando, FL, United States and Director at Ouro Verde Meio Ambiente e Negócios Sustentáveis: Ouro Verde, a Brazilian environmental management company providing compliance, auditing and training services to vehicle dealerships through its AutoVerde platform. Email: lhvilas@gmail.com
Igor Byrro Vilas, Fundação Getúlio Vargas – FGV EBAPE – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Email: igorbyrrovilas@gmail.com
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