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Nissan shows how EVs are breaking the niche barrier in Norway

Call it Keeping up with the Hansens. Through a combination of environmental consciousness, big-time government incentives and good old-fashioned peer pressure, Norway has become the country with the highest number of electric vehicles per capita. And Nissan couldn't be happier. EVs have about a 15-percent new-vehicle market share in Norway, Nissan says in a new four-minute video called No Longer Niche (watch it below). Between Norway's cheap electricity and incentives such as bus-lane use, free parking and free public recharging, Nissan's sold more than 15,000 of its all-electric Leaf EVs since sales started in Norway in 2011. In fact, Norway's EV incentives were scheduled to run through 2017, but the rules' 50,000-EV threshold may be reached as soon as next year. The rising (and, we suspect, somewhat frigid) EV tide has helped other vehicle makers, to a lesser extent. This past spring, The Wall Street Journal reported that Tesla Motors' all-electric Model S sold almost 1,500 units in March, breaking the all-time single-model monthly sales record for the country. To put EVs' 15-percent market share in perspective, consider this: last year, Ford F-Series pickups, the biggest-selling US model, accounted for about five percent of US new vehicle sales. So, in order to visualize the EV effect in Norway, imagine three times as many Ford F-Series pickups on the road in the US as there are now. On second thought, don't. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Carlos Ghosn brings Nissan Leaf EV to happy nation of Bhutan

The Nissan Leaf has been declared the cleanest car in the US, and it's going to have a good case to claim the same title in Bhutan. Yes, Bhutan, the country famous for measuring Gross National Happiness is about to get serious about the EV Grin. Last December, we learned that Bhutan's capital city, Thimphu, wanted to build up a Leaf taxi fleet. That's when Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn went to Bhutan to talk about the project and he has recently returned to deliver some vehicles to the Prime Minister of Bhutan, Tshering Tobgay, who has been advocating for EVs since taking office in July and has set a preliminary target of 2,000 EVs on the streets of Thimphu. Tobgay said his country, "will commit to a program to achieve zero emissions as a nation by a certain target date." It's not an outrageous goal for the Himalayan country, since it generates a lot of hydro-electric power, way more than it can use. There are only around 750,000 citizens of Bhutan and they only use five percent of the clean power made within its borders. Most of the rest goes to neighbor India. The problem, as expressed in Nissan's press release (available below), is that Bhutan takes "almost all of the revenue earned from selling electricity" to buy fossil fuel from India and power its national vehicle fleet. You can probably see how making the switch to EVs can simplify and clean things all around. There's a video of Ghosn's Bhutan trip below. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Nissan Partners with Bhutan on National EV Strategy Feb. 21 – Thimphu, Bhutan – An electric revolution has begun in Bhutan. The remote Himalayan country, renowned for championing "Gross National Happiness," has taken first steps towards becoming a leading global electric-vehicle nation. Prime Ministers of Bhutan, Tshering Tobgay and Nissan CEO, Carlos Ghosn Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay and Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn announced a partnership in Thimphu Friday, which will see both parties work toward achieving Bhutan's ambitious clean-energy goals. "We will develop a program, we will commit to a program to achieve zero emissions as a nation by a certain target date," said Tobgay who has backed the EV project since taking office in July last year.

Carlos Ghosn returns as president of ACEA

The European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (abbreviated ACEA in French) is an industry group representing all the biggest automakers in Europe, representing their common interests on the world stage. And as such it needs a leader, figurehead and mouthpiece to serve as its president, and for the second time the association's board of directors has chosen Carlos Ghosn.
Now if you're recognizing Ghosn as the CEO of Nissan and wondering what that has to do with European cars, it's not because Nissan manufactures much in Europe. In fact, it only operates has a handful of locations in Europe: one in the UK, one in Barcelona and one in St Petersburg. But you'd be wise to recall that Ghosn also serves as CEO of Renault, one of the biggest players in European automobile manufacturing. He also sits on the boards at Russian automaker AvtoVAZ (of which Renault owns 25 percent) and of his native Brazil's Banco Itaú, not to mention the advisory councils of a handful of universities - two of them from his ancestral hometown of Beirut. He previously served as president of ACEA in 2009, and was re-elected to replace outgoing PSA chairman Philippe Varin.
Alongside Renault, ACEA membership includes BMW, Daimler, Fiat, Jaguar Land Rover, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Volkswagen and Volvo, along with the European divisions of Ford, General Motors, Hyundai and Toyota, as well as a handful of truck manufacturers.