Evolution of the Vehicle Fleet in Brazil

e&e-ONG Team
feu@ecen.com 

(soon figures in English)

1. Introduction

This work is part of a study aiming at evaluating the greenhouse effect gases emission from diesel road vehicles between 1990 and 1997 and it is part of the national evaluation coordinated by the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology.

Soon some parametric results from 1970 on will be presented as well as prospective data up to the year 2010, depending on the hypothesis regarding macro-economic growth and fleet evolution.

The participation of road transport in Brazil is very important as shown by the statistic released by the Ministry of Transport (GEIPOT/MT).

Figure 1.1: Source: GEIPOT Yearbook Statistics, several years. The values for road traffic are estimated and there was a methodological change in 1977   and (probably) in 1987 . Until 1980 the data are presented in "Estatísticas Históricas do Brasil IBGE 1987".

This participation is even more significant in fuel consumption according to data from the Energy Balance 1998 - MME.

Figure 1.2: The energy consumption reflects predominance of road transport in Brazil, enhanced by its relative energy inefficiency vis-à-vis rail transport.

The freight and passenger transport uses predominately diesel oil as will be seen in this work.

2. Diesel Fleet Evaluation

With the organization of the unified vehicle registry that is being carried out by DENATRAN it is hoped that it will be possible to have a less inaccurate idea of the vehicle fleet existing in Brazil.

Unfortunately, it seems that only partial result are available which were release in the ANFAVEA Bulletin that estimates the following figures for the existing fleet in Brazil in 1997 (registered until August 1998)

Table 2.1

Denatran/Ministry of Justice

Notes:

a) Data refer to vehicles fabricated until 1997 and licensed until August/98

b) Other vehicles refer to registered but not licensed until August/98

These data are in contrast to those released by GEIPOT and that refer to vehicles registered in the several DETRAN's and subject to a double count. Their use for evaluating the fleet have been contested by several groups inside and outside the Government.

Table 2.2: NATIONAL FLEET OF AUTOMOTIVE VEHICLES

NUMBER OF EXISTING VEHICLES- 1997

SOURCES: DETRAN's e GEIPOT. NOTE: Data relative to vehicles registered in the DETRANS, until December /31. (1) - These values are already added in the total column.

In this work we considered the global data from DENATRAN as representative of the fleet in 1998 and we adapted the vehicle lasting curve in order to approximately reproduce the fleet and the average age estimated by this organ.

2.1 Sale of Vehicles Fabricated in the Country

Data regarding the sale of vehicles fabricated in the country that were the base for estimating the fleet are given below, according to ANFAVEA.

Table 2.3 Sales of diesel vehicles produced in the country for the internal market - 1957/1997

Figure 2.1: Sales of national manufactures for the internal market. Source: ANFAVEA

The sales of imported vehicles are prone to larger inaccuracies but they were not significant

from 1960 to 1990.

2.2 Sales of Imported Vehicles

In order to determine the existing fleet in each year, the available data regarding sales and imports were considered. Sales data from national manufactures affiliated to ANFAVEA as well as their imports are easily found in the bulletins of that organization. Data referring to other imports are more difficult to retrieve. In this case, data collected by GEIPOT and the supposed distribution by fuel type analogous to that of ANFAVEA were used.

For import data previous to 1957 (time when the Brazilian automobile industry activities started) were taken from BARROS et all in a IPEA communication (1) that gives data from 1937 on and estimates the gasoline and diesel fractions for some years. The initial existing fleet in 1936 was taken from GEIPOT data collected in the publication "Estatísticas Históricas IBGE" (2). The same criterion used by BARROS for the first years was used for the distribution between gasoline and diesel.

It should be noted that the initial data have practically no influence on the fleet data from 1970 on and no influence at all on those of 1990 according to the scrapping criteria adopted.

The collection of data was comprehensive and was not restricted to diesel vehicles. This will be useful to the projections to be made where it is necessary to establish the possible fuel substitution.

The import data are summarized in the following table. Data until 1990 refer to imports and data after this year refer to the sale of imported vehicles. For the present purpose it was considered that before 1990 the imports corresponded to the sale of these vehicles in the internal market. Between 1980 and 1990 there is no information available but it is known that imports were minimum due to the almost absolute restrictions then in force.

Table 2.4: Imports (until 1990) and sales of imported vehicles in Brazil

Data for diesel vehicles are shown in the following table

Table 2.5: Imports (until 1990) and sales of imported diesel vehicles in Brazil

2.3 Total Sale of Vehicles

From the data relative to the sale of national and imported vehicles it is possible to calculate the total number of vehicles by category sold in Brazil that was used to determine the national fleet.

Table 2.6 – Total Sale of Vehicles in Brazil

Table 2.7 –Sale of Diesel Vehicles in Brazil

Table 2.8 – Sale of Gasoline Vehicles in Brazil

Table 2.9 – Sale of Alcohol Vehicles in Brazil

The graphics below show that the sales in the internal market varied in the last three decades. In the establishment of the automotive industry in Brazil, diesel vehicles were defined as destined exclusively for freight and collective transportation that resulted in favoring their users with a lower fuel supply price. This trend was enhanced after the first petroleum shock (1973) when the participation of diesel oil in heavy freight reached practically 100%.

Figure 2.2: Participation of diesel oil in the sales of heavy vehicle per fuel

With the second petroleum shock in 1979 there was a considerable encouragement for using alcohol in heavy vehicles and diesel subsidies became evident. The participation of alcohol in heavy vehicles was episodic but it was more important for the light commercial vehicles were the three fuels effectively competed. The trend for using diesel was restrained by alcohol that lost market to gasoline. Due to the difference of vehicle costs in this range the competition between Otto cycle and Diesel vehicles is still possible even with the difference in fuel prices.

Figure 2.3: Participation of Diesel in the sale of light commercial vehicles per fuel

Since there was a retraction in the car market, there was a strong retraction in the sale of alcohol cars that was practically reduced to zero.

Figure 2.4: Sale of diesel vehicles per type of vehicle (includes imported vehicles)

The sale of heavy vehicles, in opposition to what occurred to cars, did not show such a dramatic reaction in the nineties. It is strongly conditioned by economical growth and particularly connected to the primary productive sectors. The sale of buses grew consistently during the last four decades reflecting the urbanization that occurred in the period.

2.3 Scrapping of Vehicles

Due to the lack of reliable fleet statistics, the scrapping curve must be applied on the sale of vehicles. In the present case we used as boundary the DENATRAN estimation that supplies the total fleet and their average age. A logistic (integral) curve was applied as follows:

Y = Y₀ / (1+ Exp (a*(t-t₀)))

Where t₀ corresponds to the curve inflexion point in S (remnant value, half of the initial one)

Note: Since it is not a curve with value 1 in time zero it is necessary a re-normalization and that is made by adding the "mirrored" curve, taking Y = Y₀/(1+Exp(a*(t-t₀)))+Y₀/(1+Exp(a*(t+t₀))) which for the t₀ values used in the present work represents only a correction.

The values of a and t₀ were fitted to approximately reproduce the fleet values and their average age in 1970 according to DENATRAN.

The curves used for different types of vehicles were not substantially modified for the different types of vehicles and they are shown in the following figures.

The following table records the fitting constant values used.

Table 2.10

Other forms of scrapping curves were used (parabolic, Gompertz and polynomial). Particularly in the case of trucks, the fleet and the their age can only be reproduced by scrapping curves close to the linear ones for the first years.

We present preliminarily in this report the results obtained with these parameters. There are some consistency tests related with fuel consumption that could validate these parameters.

Nevertheless, a computer program was developed (visual basic + Exel) that easily allows to test other scrapping curves hypothesis. The diesel fleet obtained is shown in table 2.8.

Table 2.11 - Diesel Fleet

The following graphic illustrates the evolution of the Diesel Fleet

In the following graphic the average diesel consumption per heavy vehicle is shown. The most significant fleet in terms of consumption is that of heavy commercial vehicles (trucks and buses). Considering an equivalence of 5 light commercial vehicles (or cars) for 1 heavy vehicle one can estimate the average consumption per heavy vehicle.

The following graphic shows the age of diesel vehicles per type

REFERENCES

(1) Um Modelo econométrico para Demanda de Gasolina pelos Automóveis de Passeio

Ricardo Paes de Barros e Silvério Soares Ferreira IPEA - May 1992 - 135 pag

(2) Estatísticas Históricas do Brasil IBGE 1987 - Volume 3

(3) Últimos anos GEIPOT e ANFAVEA (Internet pages, see links)

The evolution of the Brazilian vehicle fleet is reproduced from data regarding sale, fleet and average age released by DENATRAN for 1997. A scrapping function is fitted to reproduce the 1997 values from sale data.