Across Asia, many daily trips are made on three wheels. The auto rickshaw is more or less a motorcycle in the front and a party in the back in the form of benches, seats, or cargo space. Rickshaws—derived from hand-pulled carts via a bicycle-based version—come in a range of styles, from fully enclosed boxes to more open options topped with a simple shade canopy. Made for low speeds and urban settings, they are typically run like taxis, operated by drivers who take people and things from place to place for a fee. They can weave in and out of traffic in cities where a car would make little headway.
The U.S. has a ways to go before it electrifies its most popular form of transport. Incentives that were passed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act could help with that. Maybe. Eventually. Late last week, the Treasury Department laid out specifications for EVs to be eligible for tax credits of up to $7,500—and the list of fully eligible cars is likely to be pretty short, at least for a while. While we wait for cheaper electric cars, America shouldn’t tune out the e-rickshaw revolution. In many ways, they are the perfect EV.
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