Bhutan has set an ambitious target to replace all of the nation’s cars with electric vehicles, according to the Financial Timeson Thursday, as part of a government effort towards environmental sustainability as well as to reduce the cost of fossil fuel imports.
Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay announced this week that all official government vehicles would be replaced with the Nissan Leaf, an electric car, by March 2014; while taxis and family cars are expected to be gradually replaced with electric vehicles.
FT reported that Tobgay has met with executives from electric vehicle makers to discuss creating a research and development centre for electric vehicle technology in the capital of Thimpu, with the aim of producing low-cost electric vehicles for the whole country.
“This government is going to attempt to make Thimpu an electric vehicle hotspot. We are confident that electric vehicles can take off here,” Tobgay said in an interview with foreign reporters.
Bhutanese officials, as well as executives from Nissan, say that Thimpu may present the ideal opportunity for such a venture. Its population of 120,000 rely heavily on a flett of 3,500 smalls taxis for transportation, while electricity is cheap and most road trips are short.
“You put 2,000 vehicles in Thimpu and suddenly Thimpu is an electric city,” Tobgay noted. A typical taxi driver in the city spends 800 ngultrum ($13) a day on fuel, whereas recharging would cost 10 ngultrum ($0.16) or less, Bhutanese officials also claimed.
Nissan confirmed it was in “commercial talks” with Bhutan over supply of the Leaf and charging infrastructure.
“Nissan applauds the initiative taken by the Bhutanese government to leap-frog oil-dependent mobility in favour of zero-emission transport and is keen to support their ambitions,” the company said.
Local companies are also expected to be involved. Tashi Wangchuk, a Yale-trained environmental scientist turned entrepreneur, said that his company, Thunder Motors, had already spent $2 million on R&D and was spending another $1m on producing the first 100 vehicles for sale – using the bodies of new Maruti cars from India, imported batteries and electric motors, and proprietary technology for the interface between the engine and the gearbox.
“Electricity is like oil for us – it’s the most abundant resource, and it makes a lot of sense to go all electric,” he said. “My own target [for Bhutan] is a 70 per cent reduction in fossil fuel imports by 2020.”
Bhutan is renowned internationally for championing gross national happiness (GNH) over gross domestic product, with environmental sustainability an important concept of the GNH philosophy.