Senator wants to ban sale of gasoline and diesel cars from 2030

A bill being processed in the Senate intends to ban the sale of cars powered by gasoline, diesel and natural gas from 2030. According to the proposal, vehicles powered by fossil fuels will no longer be able to circulate in the country from 2040 onwards.

The objective of the project’s author, senator Ciro Nogueira (PP), is to establish a “policy to replace cars powered by fossil fuels”. Suitable replacements, in his opinion, would be electric cars.

As of 4:40 pm on Friday (22), the idea of ​​banning combustion cars had 3,331 votes in favor and 9,744 against on the Senate’s popular participation platform, where anyone can register their position on the matter.

The project was presented in 2017. In 2020, it was approved by the Senate’s Constitution, Justice and Citizenship Committee (CCJ), but has been on hold since then until, in May 2023, Nogueira asked for the proposal to be unarchived.

PLS 304/2017 is at the Environment Committee (CMA), where it was put up for voting last Wednesday (20). However, the rapporteur, senator Carlos Viana (Podemos-MG) asked to withdraw from the agenda to re-examine his opinion, which is favorable to Nogueira’s proposal.

The CMA’s decision is final. This means that, if the commission approves the project and there is no appeal to the contrary, the text goes directly to the Chamber of Deputies, without going through the Senate plenary. To come into force, the text would still need approval from the Chamber and presidential sanction.

Nogueira’s project adds two articles to the Brazilian Traffic Code (Law 9,503/1997). One of them prohibits the sale of combustion vehicles, with the exception of those “fueled exclusively with dual fuels”, from 2030. The other also prohibits the circulation of these models, ten years later, allowing some exceptions. According to the text, from 2040 onwards only the following combustion vehicles could continue to be in circulation:

• collector cars;
• official cars;
• diplomatic representation vehicles; It is
• foreign visitor vehicles, within a period of 180 days of stay.

The project text does not clarify how this transition will be made, nor does it address its impacts on the automobile and transport markets or on production chains.

Automakers around the world have invested in electric and hybrid vehicles. In Brazil, the automobile industry announced investments of R$86 billion in recent months, to be applied gradually until 2032. But not all of this money will go towards the new generation of vehicles; part of it will be allocated to the development of combustion cars, which tend to remain in the product mix of almost all companies in the sector for a long time.

According to the justification attached by Ciro Nogueira to the project, the exchange of vehicles powered by fossil fuels for electric ones will be “very advantageous from an environmental point of view” and is already occurring in other countries. The senator mentions that the ban on combustion models is being discussed by developed countries such as Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

He argues that Brazil “cannot remain outside this discussion, since the automobile industry installed here has all the conditions to produce automobiles as advanced as those used abroad”.

“We hope that, by 2030, the vast majority of cars manufactured in our territory will be electric. With this, we can move on to the definitive solution to the problem, which is the ban on the circulation of cars powered by fossil fuels (currently, gasoline, diesel and natural gas)”, says the senator in justifying the project.

In his opinion, rapporteur Carlos Viana maintains that the project deserves to prosper, “as it contributes to Brazil honoring its climate commitments and establishes a clear signal that the Legislature aims to decarbonize the Brazilian economy.”

“It is worth remembering that biofuels are compatible with ‘flex’ (ethanol) vehicles and are already used in fuel mixes for passenger and cargo transport vehicles and in tractors,” he stated.