By Charlie Colasurdo and Xiangming Chen
The self-evident USP of electrical autos has, from the start, been their dramatically less-polluting impact in contrast with fossil-fuel autos. However, as Charlie Colasurdo and Xiangming Chen clarify, case research present that there’s much more excellent news for these for whom mobility is essential.
Electric micromobility is spreading globally, partly pushed by China’s surge to develop into the worldwide chief in its home adoption and the worldwide manufacturing of electrical autos, with BYD in pole place (Huang and Chen, 2025a). As this China-led e-micromobility results in decrease emissions, cleaner air, and quieter streets, the place does it match into the advance of mobility networks in responding to site visitors and transport calls for posed by the quickly rising and closely congested megacities of the worldwide South?
This text addresses this query by introducing a comparative examine of two- and three-wheeler micromobility in Bangkok, Thailand, and main African cities. Throughout massive cities within the world South, electrical two- and three-wheelers have emerged as a serious fleet in new mobility networks powered by cheap batteries, on-line purposes, and economies shared by gig work and ride-sharing. They type a key cog of micromobility ecosystems that replicate the spatial association and infrastructure of their respective city environments.
Right here, we take a comparative have a look at how electrical motorbikes and tricycles have helped form the mobility panorama of global-South megacities. Whereas laying out the environmental, financial, and social advantages of this e-micromobility, we draw consideration to the financing and the infrastructural and operational challenges going through the continued development and clean operating of electrical two- and three-wheelers.
Bangkok’s Burgeoning Transit Infrastructure
Bangkok, Thailand—a megacity of over 10 million individuals and one of many world’s most visited cities, with 32.4 million guests in 2024—is known for its clogged streets, going through acute challenges from congestion and particulate air pollution (Mansel, 2024). To alleviate this, town has invested closely in a rising transit community. Because the launch of the elevated BTS SkyTrain in 1999, town has been served by a system that has grown to embody two electrified commuter rail traces, an airport rail hyperlink, two MRT traces, two monorails, three SkyTrain traces, and a Bus Speedy Transit (BRT) line (Lesmes, 2018). Extra are on their approach, together with a number of high-speed rail traces connecting town’s new central practice station to Japanese and Northeastern Thailand, a number of line extensions, and a brand new MRT line beneath development. The town’s 2024 mass fast transit plan (M-MAP 2) requires 11 new electrical practice routes overlaying 163 kilometers, with the primary traces to be accomplished in 2028-29 (The Nation, 2024).
Increasing Bangkok’s rail system has related closely trafficked vacationer locations within the Phra Nakhon District (or “the Outdated City”), suburban neighborhoods in Japanese and Northern Bangkok, and throughout the Chao Phraya River in Thonburi with town’s Central Enterprise District (CBD). As new areas fall into the catchment areas of transit techniques, the first- and last-mile logistics develop into the subsequent salient difficulty to handle. Bangkok’s mobility ecosystem is a constellation of choices, from motorcycle taxis and town’s iconic Tuk-Tuks to river ferries, canal and categorical boats, and buses. However customers nonetheless face difficulties touring the final mile from stations to residences, places of work, and colleges, with out sufficient pedestrian infrastructure, and with excessive warmth and a monsoon local weather. Regardless of the rising adoption of electrical automobiles, vehicles, and buses, town can also be going through an air air pollution disaster that has shuttered colleges and places of work.
EV Tuk-Tuks as a brand new technique of micromobility
A quiet, tech-enabled Tuk-Tuk revolution is unfolding on Bangkok’s crowded streets, leveraging modern automobile design, cell app expertise, and rising demand for last-mile mobility choices.
The ubiquity of ride-hailing apps like Seize and Bolt, the rise of battery electrical autos (BEVs), and the growth of fast transit have created a singular alternative for micromobility options to disrupt the “final mile” problem—connecting transit stations to properties, colleges, and workplaces. In Bangkok, town’s iconic petrol-powered Tuk-Tuks at the moment are complemented by bigger, quieter electrical fashions run by MuvMi, a ride-hailing service operated with a cell software just like Seize. Tons of of MuvMi Tuk-Tuks serve 11 Bangkok neighborhoods (picture 1), making hundreds of journeys in 2024. Now a relentless presence at college campuses, metro stations, and in slender alleyways, a quiet, tech-enabled Tuk-Tuk revolution is unfolding on Bangkok’s crowded streets, leveraging modern automobile design, cell app expertise, and rising demand for last-mile mobility choices.
MuvMi’s mum or dad firm, City Mobility Tech Co. Ltd., was based in 2016 by Krisada Kritayakirana, Pipat Tangsiripaisan, Supapong Kitiwattanasak, and Metha Jeeradit. It launched its MuvMi EV Tuk-Tuk app in 2018, with prospects ready to make use of an app to hail a custom-designed three-wheeler bigger than the standard petrol-powered Tuk-Tuk and capable of seat seven, together with the driving force. By 2022, MuvMi served roughly 2,000 to 4,000 passenger journeys every day throughout 5 areas. In 2023, it had doubled to 10 service areas, and by 2024 served roughly 20,000 passenger journeys every day. By October 2025, it had grown to twenty-eight,000 to 30,000 journeys every day (Sangveraphunsiri, 2025).
MuvMi’s complete protection space is roughly 100 to 150 sq. kilometers, with round 8,000 pick-up and drop-off “hop factors” throughout Bangkok. In contrast to a conventional Tuk-Tuk or ride-hailing journey, riders can solely go between hop factors throughout the identical service space. Moreover, the service capabilities as a real ride-sharing program, which can journey to select up different passengers alongside the best way in a consolidated journey.
As of October 2025, MuvMi had roughly 700 energetic EV Tuk-Tuk drivers per day working 600 to 700 EV Tuk-Tuks every day. All the fleet is 800, however the remainder of the autos are used to help the corporate’s different income streams, together with personal automobile leases (Sangveraphunsiri, 2025). Costs for MuvMi’s EV Tuk-Tuk experience share service are reasonably priced, with fares starting at 10 Thai Baht (0.32 USD)—partially backed by the corporate’s different ventures. This retains the service aggressive with motorcycle taxis and conventional petrol-powered Tuk-Tuks, decreasing the barrier to utilization.
Adapting to a altering metropolis
MuvMi reassesses its service areas each six months; the corporate’s operations workforce examines space maps and redraws borders to make sure that hop factors within the neighborhood of every space are included whereas inserting extra hop factors on the borders of every zone to extend demand. As Bangkok expands the Metropolitan Speedy Transit (MRT) system, MuvMi is planning to give attention to servicing stations as a part of the high-capacity east-west MRT Orange Line (28 stations) and MRT Purple Line southern extension (17 stations), each focused to open in 2030 (Sangveraphunsiri, 2025). MuvMi goals to fill within the service gaps of those traces, which can run by the closely congested coronary heart of town. For newer monorail traces with decrease capability, together with the Pink and Yellow Traces, the corporate is assessing demand for companies alongside the routes.
MuvMi has likewise formed the journey habits of its customers; getting prospects out of Seize automobiles and motorcycle taxis and into EV Tuk-Tuks is essentially the most difficult side of the service. The corporate’s advertising technique has beforehand relied on phrase of mouth, and they’re now partnering with the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration to help advertising campaigns in regards to the metropolis’s designated “car-free day” in September 2025, encouraging passengers positioned inside MuvMi service areas to make use of MRT and BTS stations.
MuvMi’s typical person profile is a 20-40-year-old feminine workplace employee within the metropolis heart. Based mostly on journey functions, MuvMi has noticed that 30-40 % of its journeys begin or finish on the metro station, exhibiting that individuals largely use the journey for commuting and to switch to mass transit (Sangveraphunsiri, 2025). For the opposite 60 % of journeys, many passengers selected MuvMi to exit for lunch or dinner, and inside neighborhoods resembling Ari, when passengers search to journey to eating places in a gaggle setting the place it’s a problem to go with out a automotive. MuvMi believes that about half of its present journeys are to interchange strolling, motorcycle or automotive taxis, and half are journeys that beforehand didn’t exist and are made attainable by its companies.
Growth past the primate metropolis
Tuk-Tuks and different types of micromobility are discovered throughout Thailand’s cities, together with tourism hubs like Phuket and Chiang Mai. In 2019, Seize launched its GrabTukTuk Electrical service in Chiang Mai in partnership with Nakorn Lanna Cooperative, with the purpose of changing 450 LPG-powered Tuk-Tuks (Karnjanatawe, 2019). Different firms making strikes within the sector embody PPS Utility Co. Ltd., which by 2023 had launched its tourism-focused mobility service LoMo platform utilizing EV Tuk-Tuks with the purpose of “100,000 obtain customers in a single 12 months.”
MuvMi has determined to not broaden its service to different cities utilizing its personal fleet, however is seeking to accomplice with native operators to reinforce their stage of service and enhance perceptions of public transport in different cities. In Chiang Mai, MuvMi is working to accomplice with songthaews to make sure that they survive financially, fairly than the expensive technique of increasing its EV Tuk-Tuks to town. MuvMi’s growth to cities past Bangkok, restricted because it has been so far, factors to the potential for electrical Tuk-Tuks to develop into a cheap and ecologically sound mode of multi-purpose micromobility in secondary Southeast Asian cities.
Electrical Two-and Three-Wheelers in African Cities
As electrical three-wheelers develop into fashionable in Bangkok and doubtlessly in different Southeast Asian cities, each two- and three-wheeled bikes have emerged as a rising and extra differentiated type of micromobility throughout a variety of main African cities and even their rural hinterlands, with a prospect of additional growth. The current development of e-bikes, nonetheless, must be understood throughout the context and custom of petrol motorbikes as a well-liked type of mobility in Africa over a for much longer time. Motorbikes transport individuals privately. They carry individuals publicly as taxis. They’ve additionally develop into closely used for shifting items and delivering meals (see picture 2). In Kenya, for instance, round 5 million individuals are reported to make use of motorbikes to make a dwelling, or one in each 10 individuals (Huang, Lei and Ji, 2025).
In contrast to in Bangkok, whose comparatively well-developed public transit system relegates electrical Tuk-Tuks to succeed in and canopy peripheral areas, facet streets, and “final mile” gaps, the restricted scope and routing of public buses in most African cities, coupled with fewer paved roads, give motorbikes, together with some three-wheelers, a extra essential position in transporting individuals and items, particularly entry to metropolis corners and throughout peri-urban areas, the place casual transportation accounts for over 70 % of commuting. Within the main cities of Mali, Burkina Faso, and several other different African international locations, two- and three-wheelers make up almost 80 % of all autos. Petrol-powered three-wheelers account for roughly 80 % of all short-distance hauling (CIEG, 2025).
The place does China slot in?
Since China has been Africa’s largest buying and selling accomplice since 2009, it was to be anticipated that Africa’s massive bike market would appeal to a whole lot of imports from Chinese language producers. Actually, in 2024, China despatched 3.8 million absolutely assembled bikes to Africa, price $282 million, a 21 % enhance 12 months on 12 months (Huang, Lei and Ji, 2025). Within the first quarter of 2025, China exported 1.2 million bikes to Africa, its second-largest market on the earth, a 63 % enhance over the identical interval of 2024 (China Trade Internet, 2025). The Chinese language megacity of Chongqing stands out as the biggest supply of China’s bike exports to Africa. In 2024, its bike exports to Africa amounted to $361 million, up 19.7 % 12 months on 12 months, accounting for 15-20 % of all China’s exports of bikes to Africa (Wang, 2025).
Of all Chinese language bike exports to Africa, electrical two- and three-wheelers have gained share attributable to their rising advantages on African roads. To start with, conventional petrol-powered two- and three-wheelers are a serious supply of street-level air pollution. In Nairobi, tailpipe emissions, a lot of which come from motorbikes, account for 40 % of town’s general air pollution. Second, electrical three-wheelers in Tanzania can decrease the gasoline prices of petrol-powered three-wheelers by one-sixth, given the excessive and incessantly rising petrol costs. It permits somebody who has switched to an electrical three-wheeler to scale back their every day supply value from $12 to $1 a day (CIEG, 2025).
Chinese language tech for African e-micromobility
Constructing on the rising attraction of electrical two- and three-wheelers to African customers, Chinese language firms have launched some technological enhancements to higher go well with the African circumstances of accelerated urbanization, site visitors congestion, inferior roads, and severely missing “final mile” connectivity. A Chinese language tire firm in Chongqing supplying native bike exports to Africa and leveraging its merchandise constructed to go well with the mountainous megacity has designed a sequence of recent merchandise to resist contact with African street circumstances like tough surfaces, potholes and objects, and excessive warmth. The corporate has additionally deliberate to strike long-term contracts with African importers of motorbike tires.
To finest illustrate the rising position of Chinese language tech corporations in Africa’s e-micromobility, we flip to TECNO, a subsidiary of Transsion, a Chinese language producer of cell phones headquartered in Shenzhen, also called China’s “Silicon Valley” of {hardware}. Having targeted totally on Africa since 2008, TECNO now dominates, with over 50 % of Africa’s cell phone market. In 2023, TECNO unveiled its first three-wheeler, branded TankVolt, and shortly added different fashions of electrical two- and three-wheelers.
As well as, TECNO has provided economical fashions beginning as little as $420 per automobile beneath the brand new and associated model of REVOO. This market-entry technique, which duplicates TECNO’s very low-cost cell phones on the early stage of its entry into Africa, has helped safe a big order of 5,000 three-wheelers from the Nigerian authorities and pushed TankVolt into the highest EV sellers in Africa (CIEG, 2025). Most significantly, TECNO has launched BaaS (battery-as-a-service), which permits somebody to purchase an EV or electrical motorcycle with out the battery and as a substitute subscribe to it individually, as a approach of considerably decreasing the preliminary value of buy.
Adaptation and extension
The Chinese language involvement in Africa’s e-micromobility has fueled its broader growth, which in flip has created alternatives for indigenous African firms to emerge as each aggressive and complementary gamers. Based in 2019, with its operational heart based mostly in Kenya, Spiro in 2022 signed a serious contract to import 50,000 electrical motorbikes from Hangzhou, China. In 2023, Spiro raised $63 million through loans from Société Générale (SG) in France and GuarantCo in the UK to construct battery-switching stations for the BaaS, accompanied by fleet growth in Kenya and Uganda. With a mortgage of $50 million from the African Import/Export Financial institution in 2024, Spiro expanded into Cameroon and Morocco, and into Tanzania in 2025, when it additionally raised $100 million extra from the capital markets for additional development (Tailun, 2025).
Chinese language involvement in Africa’s e-micromobility has fueled its broader growth, which in flip has created alternatives for indigenous African firms.
Spiro’s success rides on its BaaS. Its CEO remarked, “African riders usually drive 10-12 hours and canopy 150-200 kilometers per day. Whereas they save some huge cash utilizing e-motorcycles, they will’t afford to cease to cost the batteries.” Since batteries account for 30-40 % of the EV value, most African consumers can’t afford electrical bikes with batteries. Spiro’s resolution is a battery-subscription system, which permits drivers to pay for every day utilization (Tailun, 2025). In Kampala, Uganda, an e-motorcycle driver switches a low or drained battery for a completely charged one by paying a small and diverse price, usually on his TECNO cellphone. Battery-swapping stations in Kampala have additionally attracted e-motorcycle drivers for the favored boda-boda taxis, regardless that electrical bikes account for less than about 10 % of town’s taxi fleet. If extra e-motorbikes for various makes use of proceed to develop, they’ll assist scale back carbon emissions in one of the vital polluted cities in Africa.
As an integral a part of its enterprise mannequin, Spiro has established meeting crops in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Nigeria, the place CKDs or absolutely disassembled kits from China are put collectively. Spiro’s Kenya-based core plant can now make the traction motor, a key a part of an electrical bike. Of all of the plastics elements, helmets, and brake parts, the regionally sourced portion has already reached 30-40 %, which is anticipated to rise to 70 % in two years (Tailun, 2025). This stage of localization wouldn’t be attainable with out Spiro’s collaboration with Chinese language firms to achieve manufacturing information and expertise switch.
Conclusion
Throughout Southeast Asia and Africa, EV micromobility firms have leveraged elevated entry to smartphones and electrical automobile battery expertise to handle various transportation wants. In Bangkok, a strong public transit community has facilitated the parallel improvement of last-mile EV Tuk-Tuk rideshare, which might be flexibly designed to adapt to commuter demand. In African cities, EV motorbikes have shifted into excessive gear throughout diverse lanes of utilization starting from public transport to quick haul to service supply. They fill bigger tackle gaps in public transit, getting individuals round and past the concurrently congested and sprawling African cities. As well as, whereas China is considerably concerned in Thailand’s EV sector, that includes BYD’s massive manufacturing facility close to Bangkok (Huang and Chen, 2025b), smaller Chinese language firms have been actively concerned in Africa’s marketplace for electrical bikes by exporting accomplished autos, supplying CKDs, establishing native manufacturing, and selling expertise switch.
Each case research illustrate some tangible financial and social advantages of EV micromobility companies, together with decreasing gasoline bills, decreasing city air pollution, and permitting riders to make fast and handy journeys that had been in any other case inconceivable with current mobility choices. In scorching, congested, and quickly rising city areas in Southeast Asia and Africa, the place many journey by two- and three-wheelers, EV micromobility has generated substantial early beneficial properties for high quality of life amongst its makes use of whereas heralding an essential pathway to extra electrification and decarbonization broadly. It holds promise for the long run.
Concerning the Authors
Charlie Colasurdo is an actual property developer based mostly in Durham, North Carolina, and serves as a member of the Alumni Advisory Board for Younger Urbanists of Southeast Asia, a community of policymakers, architects, and planners devoted to shaping a greater city future in ASEAN. He beforehand labored within the tourism business in Vietnam and Thailand, carried out thesis analysis in Bangkok on the intersection of meals tradition, public coverage, and tourism, and authored Duke College’s strategic plan for engagement with Thailand. Charlie holds a B.A. in Political Economic system and Public Coverage from Duke College and Duke Kunshan College in China.
Xiangming Chen is Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of International City Research and Sociology at Trinity Faculty in Connecticut and an Affiliate Fellow on the Heart for Superior Safety, Strategic and Integration Research (CASSIS) on the College of Bonn, Germany. He has revealed extensively on urbanization and globalization with a give attention to China and Asia in addition to a frequent contributor on “China within the World” to The European Monetary Evaluation and The World Monetary Evaluation. He has additionally carried out coverage analysis for the World Financial institution, the Asian Growth Financial institution, UNCTAD, and OECD.
References
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