The first batch of pure electric buses, produced by the Chinese car manufacturing firm BYD, will take to the streets here in about two weeks.
"This bus was built for the Transmilenio system. This means that there are no other buses in the world like this one," said Pedro Cardenas, general manager of BYD in Colombia.
The buses of eight, 12 and 18 meter-long were exclusively assembled in the Chinese city of Shenzhen to circulate on Bogota's streets as part of the massive local public transport system known as Transmilenio.
The current buses in Bogota's transport system use diesel and have been in circulation for 15 years. For that reason, they will soon be replaced by the new vehicles, which release no contaminating gases.
"This is a vehicle that has been produced and configured exclusively for Transmilenio. We can't sell this vehicle in another country or in another city because each massive transport has its own configuration," explained Cardenas.
Cardenas said that the "global trend" is to reduce the use of fossil fuels and a solution is using electric vehicles to get around as they are cheap compared with those that run on diesel or gas.
The Colombian city of Medellin is also interested in switching to an electric transport system as they were "delighted" with BYD's technology.
"We think that Colombia is leading the field in the region. For that reason, it could become an example to follow for the rest of Latin American capital cities when it comes to adopting clean energy from electric cars and buses," said Cardenas.
The Ministry for the Environment and Sustainable Development and other governmental departments have voiced their support for the electric buses initiative.
"We are now an example in the continent, given that Bogota adopted the sustainable mobility model with the electric taxis pilot program. This has been good for the environment as it has reduced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by more than a ton over two years," Cardenas said.
