The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Nissan LEAFs, an electric car, was launched coinciding with the birth anniversary of His Majesty the King by Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay and the CEO of Nissan Company, Carlos Ghosn, in the Clock Tower Square February 21 in Thimphu.
“As you can see, I am veryexcited, we have story to tell ourselves and tell the world. It is a narrative of Gross National Happiness (GNH), narrative that was formed by our beloved Kings, that precious story of GNH which talks of balancing economic growth that is unavoidable with a culture and spiritual traditional, which is absolutely inside you all, balancing economic growth which requires prosperity withenvironmental protection, essential if the economic growth is going to take us in the next century, if we want to keep our planet for our future generation,” said the Prime Minister.
“I am excited that Nissan Leaf is the part of this journey. We are a new government in Bhutan but we will continue with wise policies and clear part forward established by
our Kings as such the RGoB has always placed very high priority for the conservation of our environment, as a result, we have today 74% of our country under forest cover. This is for ourselves, for our future generation and gift to the world, we also have recently launched two programs, a program called clean Bhutan to keep our environment clean and green Bhutan in order to ensure that we don’t rest on past morals, but instead we make our environment even more vibrant,” added the Prime Minister.
Lyonchhen highlighted that free renewable energy is given to the farmers so that they use electricity instead of fire wood at homes. He said the electric car by Nissan will help us along this journey to use sustainable environment friendly and zero emission transport. The aim is to develop and commit to a program aimed at achieving zero emission.
The government is looking to replace government utilityvehicles and taxi vehicles with eco-friendly cars like the electric cars, and discussions are underway to install quick electric car chargers points throughout country so that people driving Nissan LEAFs or any other electric car can drive without any problem.
Lyonchhen said the installation of chargers through the length and breadth of our country is important as the Mahindra E2o, Reva will be launched next.
The government has already announced a lift on ban of electric vehicles. CEO Nissan, Carlos Ghosn, said “We have signed non binding MoU to promote and increase electronic used across the country, this agreement reflects our common interest for introduction and expansion of electric vehicles, a promising solution for reducing emission and problem that has never being more urgent to tackle.”
He also said that last year, the world set a new record high for CO2 emission, nearly 40bn tons. It is estimated that transportation sector generated 23% of this green house gas which makes about 10bn tons. In addressing this problem, Bhutan is in the forefront of identifying and implementing break through solution, such as harnessing of renewable energy and making electricity the largest export. The importance placed on zero emission transportation through the use of electric vehicles will move Bhutan closer to the goal establishing Thimphu as a clean city and help reduce the use of fossil fuel.
“Nissan LEAFs is now world best selling electric car with 45% global market share in the segment. We are working to expand the positive impact of our electric vehicle line up. In co-operation with the government and industries, partners large and small, we want to Position but landed third because he had got hard wood, which was bit difficult to cut and had eco-friendly options to more people around the world. The MoU, we are announcing today, will help meet this goal,” said Carlos Ghosn.
Nissan donated the electric vehicle accompanied by six quick chargers to Bhutan, and Nissan LEAFs is projected to become the government vehicle fleet, as part of MoU.
Many more Nissan LEAFs will be seen on the roads of Bhutan and used as taxis. The government plans implement tax incentives to accelerate electric vehicle use and ownership.
A national sales company for Nissan electric cars is being appointed in Bhutan. Nissan Motors Corporation will work together with Thunder Motors as a local partner and to supply Nissan LEAFs to help the country build its vision of an electrified national transport infrastructure.
