The humble tuk tuk grew from a 1931 Japanese truck into a global taxi
Bangladesh may now run the biggest informal electric vehicle fleet on Earth: roughly 4 million unregistered battery-powered auto rickshaws by 2025, up from 200,000 in 2016. The three-wheeled taxi behind that boom traces back to a small Japanese delivery truck and an Italian scooter maker's post-war idea.
Many historians point to the Mazda-Go, a three-wheeled open truck from 1931, as the first of the breed. Japan's postal ministry later shipped about 20,000 used three-wheelers to Southeast Asia, and Thailand built its own industry once Japan scrapped its three-wheeler licence in 1965. Europe had a parallel line: Corradino D'Ascanio, the aircraft engineer behind the Vespa, conceived the Piaggio Ape in 1947 to help rebuild Italy's economy, and Lambretta's cargo trikes became passenger vehicles through an Indian partner.
A typical passenger model has a sheet-metal body on three wheels, a canvas roof with roll-down side curtains, handlebar steering for the driver up front and room for up to three riders behind. Cheap to buy and run, and open to warm air, these vehicles thrive in tropical and developing countries. Names multiply with every border: keke in Lagos, bajaji in Dar es Salaam, raksha in Khartoum, posy's motorised successor in Madagascar, and baby taxi or CNG in Dhaka.
Pollution has reshaped them repeatedly. Dhaka banned two-stroke versions in January 2003 and allowed only gas-powered models painted green, with built-in meters. Delhi once had the phat-phati, improvised from Harley-Davidson motorcycles left behind by British troops, until a 1998 Supreme Court ruling against polluting vehicles ended it. By 2022, India had about 2.4 million battery rickshaws, adding some 11,000 a month in a market worth 3.1 billion dollars, and it overtook China as the top electric rickshaw market in 2023.
India's Bajaj Auto is now the largest maker, and in 2022 one of its 200 cc models climbed the Umling La Pass at 5,798 metres, the highest any auto rickshaw has reached.
Source: Auto rickshaw
