Tiny Electric Vehicles Pack a Bigger Climate Punch Than Cars

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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/09/business/energy-environment/two-three-wheel-electric-vehicles.html


Excerpt: Big Oil faces a tiny foe on the streets of Asia and Africa. The noisy, noxious vehicles that run on two and three wheels, carrying billions of people daily, are quietly going electric — in turn knocking down oil demand by one million barrels a day this year. In Kenya and Rwanda, dozens of start-ups are vying to replace oil-guzzling motorcycle taxis with battery-powered ones. In India, more than half of all new three-wheeled vehicles sold and registered this year were battery-operated. Indonesia and Thailand are also encouraging electrification of motorcycle taxis. China dominates the market. Its government began promoting electric vehicles decades ago in a bid to clean its smog-choked cities, which explains why a vast majority of the world’s electric two-wheelers are in China. The shift to electric mobility overall has reduced global oil demand by 1.8 million barrels every day.... Two- and three-wheelers account for 60 percent of that reduction, or 1.08 million barrels. ...Electric vehicles also solve the more immediate problem of air pollution, which the World Health Organization links to an estimated seven million premature deaths annually. The big shift to tiny electric vehicles is underappreciated in the United States and Europe, where, despite the popularity of electric bicycles and scooters, the focus has been mainly on cars.…. 

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