Driver's View on the Introduction of Electric Vehicles in the Taxi Fleet of a Brazilian Large City

In Brazil, since the purchase cost of an electric vehicle (EV) is still very high, the exchange of a conventional vehicle by an EV would only be worth if the vehicle was used as source income, such as the case of taxis. Short run distances and high daily mileage make conventional taxis ideal candidates to be replaced by battery EVs. Recently, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro received EVs as a test project, but other major cities, such as Belo Horizonte, have yet to be tested. The taxi fleet in this city has currently 7,152 vehicles, all powered by internal combustion engines, significantly contributing to equivalent carbon dioxide (CO_2eq) emissions since the daily distance traveled is high. With the aim to characterize the fleet and evaluate taxi driver's option to EVs, data was collected from a systematic sample of taxi stands, of a total of 375, through a structured interview with the drivers, considering a finite and homogeneous population. The results from the interviews conducted showed that the lack of information about EVs and their advantages are predominant among the drivers. About 68% of the interviewees never saw a hybrid or pure EV in the city streets. Factors such as purchase cost and lack of information and government incentives were the most cited by the drivers as barriers to exchange their conventional taxis by electric ones.