Electric vehicles are flooding into one of South America’s wealthiest nations where tax incentives and expensive gasoline are pushing consumers toward Chinese brands in a region long dominated by American and European giants.

Uruguay has become a focal point of South America’s EV boom, from a bevy of China’s BYD models crisscrossing the capital, Montevideo, to dozens of Teslas cruising along the famed coastline of Punta del Este where the region’s rich and famous mingle every summer.

Battery-powered electric vehicles made up about a quarter of all new car and SUV sales through October this year, more than doubling their market share from a year ago, according to data compiled by the country’s auto trade group Acau. That’s well ahead of the single-digit adoption rates observed in many oth

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