A new nonprofit bus service coming to Vietnam next year will introduce at least 3,000 new electric buses to Vietnamese roads.

Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup announced the creation of VinBus, an electric bus service that aims to create a modern public transportation system in the country with reduced noise and emissions. VinBus plans to launch in the Vietnamese cities of Hanoi, Hai Phong, Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City, and Can Tho in March 2020.

The company said it will put 3,000 electric buses into operation “in the short term.” VinBus has a charter capital of VND 1 trillion ($42.88 million USD).

VinBus will only operate electric buses, which will be manufactured by fellow Vingroup subsidiary VinFast. Automotive startup VinFast — Vietnam’s first high volume car manufacturer — expects to deliver its first (non-electric) vehicles this year. VinFast also plans to make electric cars and electric scooters.

VinFast is currently working on the VinBus factory. The company has partnered with Siemens, which will provide technology and components for production.

VinBus is a major part of Vingroup’s electric strategy. As Vingroup Vice President Nguyen Viet Quang said in the release (via VN Express),

“Ever since joining the automobile-motorcycle manufacturing industry, we have been determined to develop and popularize environmentally friendly electric cars, to gradually replace gasoline vehicles. Participating in public transport with our smart electric buses is a very important step, moving us forward in applying advanced technology as well as creating a fresh and modern urban environment.”

As a nonprofit, VinBus will reinvest all of its profits back into the company for service and development improvements. It plans on expanding its service area in the future.

Electrek’s Take

Imagine a massive American conglomerate announcing the launch of a new nonprofit service that uses thousands of electric buses to modernize transportation in the country and cut emissions and noise. That’s what Vingroup is doing in Vietnam.

Electric buses make a bigger dent in worldwide oil demand than electric cars, and China has hundreds of thousands of electric buses that are doing the vast majority of that work thus far. However, 3,000 is still a very large number of electric buses — it dwarfs the likes of the largest US electric bus fleets thus far — and Vingroup’s talk of “short term” leads us to believe the figure is a sort of starting point for VinBus.

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