MONTEVIDEO/LIMA (Reuters) -When Peruvian green energy entrepreneur Luis Zwiebach wanted to buy an electric vehicle in 2019, he flew 4,000 miles to California to test drive Tesla’s (TSLA) Model 3 sedan. But Tesla lacked an official importer and he couldn’t find a way around Peru’s complex vehicle import procedures.
He was not deterred. “There was a gentleman who had already imported one and wanted to sell it,” Zwiebach said. “So I went to see it, and I bought it.”
Charging the Tesla initially proved difficult at his friend’s beach house outside Lima. “The car wouldn’t charge because there was no grounding device,” he said. “We grabbed a fork, stuck it into the soil to make a ground — and the car charged.”
Today, it’s not so hard to take the plunge on an EV in Peru. Tesla still lacks a showroom but there’s been an influx of Chinese models from the likes of BYD, Geely and GWM, which sell electric vehicles here at around 60% of the price of a Tesla, as well as legacy manufacturers such as Toyota , Kia and Hyundai. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
Chinese car makers are widening their footprint across South America with both traditional vehicles and EVs. EVs are still a small slice of the 135,394 new cars sold in Peru in the nine months to September, according to the country’s automotive association, but they are on the rise. Sales of hybrid and electric vehicles hit a record 7,256 units in that period, up 44% year on year.
China has been ramping up sales since the opening last year of the Port of Chancay, north of Lima. The Chinese-built megaport has halved trans-Pacific shipping times just as Chinese manufacturers face rising barriers to entry in the United States and greater trade restrictions in Europe.
BYD , which makes EVs, plug-in hybrids and combustion engine cars, plans to open a fourth dealership in Lima by the end of this year, while Chery and Geely have more than a dozen in total in Peru.
“The electric car is doing very well here, more than two new cars are sold every day,” Zwiebach said from Lima.
He said rising demand had encouraged him to expand his renewables business, offering EV charger installations as well as solar panels and regenerative elevators to clients in Lima and Arequipa, including real estate developers, universities and shopping centers.
“A property developer told me he’d buy the penthouse — if it came with a car charger,” Zwiebach said. “So that’s what we did. You just plug it in at home, like a phone.”
Chinese carmakers face a profit-destroying price war at home and a growing surplus of new cars rolling out of Chinese factory lines. Much of this excess is being shipped overseas to the Middle East, Central Asia and Latin America, according to global automotive analyst Felipe Munoz at JATO Dynamics.
The Chinese have “carved out space,” across both electric and petrol-powered cars, said Martin Bresciani, president of Chile’s automotive business chamber, CAVEM. “The Chinese have already demonstrated that they match global standards in quality.”
Chinese brands reached 29.6% of all new passenger car sales in Chile in the first quarter of this year.
EV penetration in Latin America, including Mexico and Central America, doubled in 2024 to around 4%, and continues to grow, boosted by government incentives and an influx of affordable Chinese models, the International Energy Agency said in its Global EV Outlook 2025.
Latest figures show EV market share hit 10.6% of new cars registered in Chile in September, 9.4% in Brazil in August, and 28% in Uruguay in the third quarter of the year — all record highs, according to local car associations and consultancy firms. In Europe and China, half of new cars registered by mid-2025 were EVs (56% and 51% respectively). In Japan and the U.S. rates were lower, closer to 2% and 10% respectively.
Even in Argentina, where economic headwinds persist and trade barriers are higher, EV sales are rising from a low base. China’s largest carmaker, BYD, launched in Argentina for the first time in October. The company already leads electric car sales in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Uruguay.
Part of China’s success has been partnering with trusted local importers to offer more affordable models tailored to regional tastes, according to seven dealerships Reuters spoke to in Peru, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina.
Nowhere is this shift more visible than in Uruguay, where BYD is the third-biggest seller across all vehicle types, trailing only General Motors’ Chevrolet and Hyundai. China’s market share has more than doubled in the country since 2023 and is now 22%.
At the entrance to Uruguay’s glitzy beach resort town of Punta del Este, luxury car dealer Gonzalo Elgorriaga began displaying BYD models a few years ago. While he still sells European and Japanese brands, BYD now dominates sales.
“The Chinese struck first and struck hard,” said Elgorriaga, speaking to Reuters from his Stars Motors dealership overlooking Mansa beach.
Chinese brands have gained legitimacy and scale, he said. They collaborate with local banks to offer credit lines and prize draws. Competitive prices are also instrumental in their appeal. Prices in Uruguay for Chinese battery electric vehicles (BEV) from BYD start at $19,000.
“I can buy three Chinese pick-ups, for the price of two traditional brands. That’s a big difference,” said another Uruguayan car dealer, Federico Guarino.
In Chancay, Peru’s megaport built under China’s Belt and Road Initiative, rows of white sedans and stacks of multicolored containers have replaced the seaside restaurants which once welcomed weekend visitors to the sleepy fishing town.
“Each ship brings 800 to 1,200 vehicles,” said Gonzalo Rios, deputy manager at Cosco Shipping, the port operator, speaking to Reuters in October. Cosco expects the total number of vehicle arrivals from China to reach 19,000 by the end of the year.
Vehicles that arrive here are traveling beyond Peru. Cosco Shipping completed its first vehicle trans-shipment by boat in September, sending 250 cars south to Chile, where Chinese brands captured 33% of the overall car market in July. Another trans-shipment was underway last week, moving hybrids and EVs to Chile.
Cosco has also directed shipments to Ecuador and Colombia, aiming to turn Peru into a regional distribution hub for hybrid, electric and conventional Chinese cars, Rios said. China’s Chery, which held less than 2% of Peru’s EV market in September, is already using the corridor to accelerate deliveries across the continent, the company said.
Peruvian customs data show that in July alone, 3,057 cars arrived at the port, up from 839 in January. Peru does not have a large-scale car manufacturing industry to complain about the Chinese sales push, but elsewhere it has caused some tension, notably in Brazil.
Some Chinese firms are making factory investments in Brazil, whose tariff barriers serve as an incentive to produce locally. BYD began assembling EVs in October at Ford’s former plant in Bahia and Great Wall Motors (GWM) launched partial production in August at a repurposed Mercedes-Benz facility.
Ricardo Bastos, director of Institutional Affairs at GWM Brazil and president of the country’s EV association, ABVE, said the company expects to begin exporting vehicles from its Brazil factory to the region by 2027—possibly earlier—leveraging favorable trade agreements with Mexico, Chile and the South American trade bloc Mercosur.
“Brazil was the third country to receive a (GWM) factory after Russia and Thailand – it’s a strategic decision, showing the strength Latin America has,” Bastos said in an interview.
Large quantities of Chinese cars are also being imported to Brazil. Earlier this year, the world’s largest car-carrying ship docked at Brazil’s Itajai port, carrying around 22,000 vehicles, according to Reuters calculations.
Brazilian industry and labor groups say China is taking advantage of temporarily low tariff barriers for EVs in South America’s largest car market to ramp up its exports rather than investing to build Brazilian factories and create jobs. BYD has also faced scrutiny over reports of poor conditions for some workers at its new Bahia plant. The government has since moved to re-impose import duties. Tariffs on foreign EVs began returning last year and are scheduled to reach 35% by July 2026 – which Bastos at GWM said was why the on-site factories would be key.
Brazil could soon mirror Chancay as a regional distribution center. The port of Vitoria on Brazil’s southeastern Atlantic coast, currently leads in national vehicle imports.
BYD’s country manager for Argentina, Stephen Deng told Reuters in October that the company was expecting arrivals from Brazil in 2027. “I think we could eventually see Argentina adopting the same EV rates that we see in Brazil,” Deng said.
EV adoption still faces hurdles in South America, including long distances and uneven charging networks, said Bresciani, president of Chile’s automotive business chamber.
“If you want to travel the entire Peruvian coast from Tumbes to Tacna, it’s difficult,” Zwiebach said.
“But the car costs less to run and never needs to go to the service garage.”
(Reporting by Lucinda Elliott in Montevideo and Marco Aquino in Lima and Chancay, Peru. Additional reporting by Eduardo Baptista in Beijing, Leila Miller in Buenos Aires, Luciana Novaes Magalhaes in Sao Paulo and Nick Carey in London; Editing by Christian Plumb and Claudia Parsons)
