Have they been seen on the street yet?

There are Electric people carriers at chiangmai university,

they have had them for a number of years, very successful in their operation, clean and green....good stuff

Sounds like a great idea.  But how many Kilometers per charge?  How many hours of use per charge?  Where will the charging stations be built? Will the owner/operators just go home and plug in?  I knew a guy back in the USA who was happy that he had just bought an electric vehicle from a dealer 100 miles from home.  The vehicle showed a full a charge(supposedly good for 200 miles).  Fifty miles into his journey the battery died.  He had to be towed home.  

With a tuk tuk, it would be pretty easy to design a battery pack that can be pulled out for recharging it, and keep 2 sets of batteries with one in use and the other on the charger.  A $100 engine hoist or a $150 pallet mover (depending on lift-out or slide-out design) and 5 minutes is about all they'd need.

 

If they're rented like taxis, it would be pretty easy to swap out the batteries at each shift change.

 

And if they're fairly standardized, they may only need 50% redundancy (or they may need 150% redundancy, though I see tuk tuks sitting around looking for customers more than I see them scooting around with passengers.)

 

With the ludicrous price of electricity in Thailand, then it'll be a great excuse for the tuk-tuk mafia to go cap-in-hand to the authorities "demanding" a generous rise in fare rates and still provide the same lousy and dangerous service. Those things may well be quaint and culturally icon but are nothing more than a death trap really.

On 1/1/2018 at 12:40 AM, impulse said:

With a tuk tuk, it would be pretty easy to design a battery pack that can be pulled out for recharging it, and keep 2 sets of batteries with one in use and the other on the charger.  A $100 engine hoist or a $150 pallet mover (depending on lift-out or slide-out design) and 5 minutes is about all they'd need.

 

If they're rented like taxis, it would be pretty easy to swap out the batteries at each shift change.

 

And if they're fairly standardized, they may only need 50% redundancy (or they may need 150% redundancy, though I see tuk tuks sitting around looking for customers more than I see them scooting around with passengers.)

 

I suspect the battery will be recharged while the driver is napping.

I really don't think these guys can afford a $100 hoist.

Their business would take off if they had more visibility to the tourists.

Will these lovely toys be equipped with a taxi meter ?

On 6/7/2017 at 5:17 PM, malibukid said:

are they going to retire the stinky polluting petrol versions? send those to the junk yard and give rebates for electric ones?

This ain't the UK you know. Rebates? scrappage  scheme? Too many troughs to fill first.