I have to imagine that all these new EV rickshaws are significantly cleaning up the air in countries like India, Vietnam and Thailand. Anyone on the ground floor confirm this?
I recall the particulates in the air of decades past being super hard on the lungs.
While ev 3-wheelers have become quite common in India, I am not sure if they have led to any visible improvement in air quality. The earlier 3-wheelers were already CNG based and not as inefficient as petrol/gasoline powered ones. We are a developing country so I believe the growth in private cars is also offsetting any gains from ev 3-wheelers.
To add to this, the particulates in the air are not entirely from this pollution, it is a sum of our terrain, geography, agricultural activities and pollution.
There's too many "legacy" vehicles still on the road for these to make a noticeable impact. I was in Bangalore recently and in various popular and upcoming parts of the city, it's basically unbreathable toxic sludge at rush hour, and only mildly OK otherwise.
Yes like the sibling said, EVs are a fraction of the total number of vehicles on the Road. But adoption is growing every year. Hopefully in 10 years or so EVs will take over.
Nope. They're a menace. The batteries are dumped after they die out, and random alleyway factories will make batteries without caring about externalities or chemical disposal [0].
> Vietnam and Thailand
Vietnam doesn't use 3 wheelers. Everyone buys a 2 wheeler.
Thailand has transitioned to cars. You don't see "Tuktuks" outside of tourist centers anymore.
A Toyota Hilux is the vehicle of choice in Thailand
One of my expat buddies in Saigon owned a small scooter repair shop. Next door to him was a battery "recycling" place where someone would sit out front on the busy street and bust open batteries to take them apart for the valuable bits. Dust and whatever else going everywhere. The person wasn't wearing any sort of protective gear at all and was covered in soot. The shops all backed into a river, where they'd just dump all the waste they couldn't sell. This was on a street a couple km's long, full of shops like this.
It wasn't really a repair shop, more about bolting parts on for expats. Parts and repairs are super cheap and not something to be afraid of.
I also can't imagine not having a bike in Saigon, it was one of the main reasons I moved there! The city is so massive and amazing to explore and you can really only do that if you own a bike. Or, in my case, I just bought and sold used bikes all the time. Probably went through 25+ during my time there.
While India is working on massive green energy projects, it's also doubling down on expanding Coal Capacity [0] as a short term solution to energy independence. China's doing the same
Here's how you extract lead from lead acid batteries in the developing world (video is from Pakistan, but same principle in India, Vietnam, Phillipines, etc) [0], because Western Europe level environmental and labor laws aren't a thing.
> Thailand has transitioned to cars. You don't see "Tuktuks" outside of tourist centers anymore.
What are you talking about? I live in Thailand and there's tuktuks everywhere, especially outside tourist centres. And I make heavy use of an electric tuktuk ride-sharing service called Muvmi.
Yes, the Hilux is the most popular personal vehicle choice country-wide, because that includes a lot of rural areas. It's certainly not the most popular choice in the city. And people don't buy tuktuks for personal use, or Hiluxes for ride sharing, so I really don't know what you are trying to say.
What a weird, confident, and completely wrong comment.
at least in the Indian capital, over time the e-rickshaws have seemingly replaced most of the manually operated ones. neither was directly contributing to the problem, but i suppose the electric ones can be more efficient for space on the road.
I recall the particulates in the air of decades past being super hard on the lungs.