India’s electric rickshaws
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3 Wheeler EVs are booming because the prices are very low and allow you start your own business by undercutting Auto Rickshaw unions. Your average auto rickshaw or e-rickshaw driver can make around $150-200/mo tax free and eligible for subsidies, making it more competitive than working at a factory ($250-300/mo but 5% income tax and not eligible for subsidies). This makes EV 3 wheelers attractive as it's an investment in a small business.
On the other hand, EV cars aren't as popular in India yet due to range anxiety. Price doesn't factor as much because the tax incentives are made to incentivize EV cars (50% tax on disel/gas cars bit 5% tax on EV) and EVs are fairly affordable (a starting model Tata Tiago EV is around $9-10k) but no one trusts EV charging infra in India, so people are delaying purchases in order to buy a premium diesel car (eg. Toyota Fortuner, Mahindra Thar), eat the tax and buy a $4-6k Renault or Maruti ICE car for $9-10k after tax, or just keeps driving their gas car. This will change in 10 years, but the future is looking Hybrid, especially because Toyota is looking at expanding in India and lobbied a drastic tax cut [0]
No one actually buys 2 wheeler EVs - you can save $1-2k more and buy a luxury 2 wheeler like a KTM Super Duke. Most electric 2 wheeler sales are driven by Ola (India's Uber/Doordash) subsidizing it's drivers and deliverers to buy an Ola manufactured 2 wheeler while working for Ola.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota...
2 wheeler EV is not a rare sight in Bangalore. Probably 1 in 200 two wheelers is EV in my neighborhood.
Most of Bangalore's case is because of Ola subsidizing it's drivers to buy an Ola Bike [0][1].
For people who don't know, Ola is India's indigenous Uber+Doordash competitor.
If you're price sensitive, you can always buy a used Hero Honda for around $500-1k, so cheaper than a 2 wheeler EV. If you aren't price conscious, you can buy a luxury bike like a KTM or a car.
[0] - https://m.economictimes.com/industry/renewables/electric-two...
[1] - https://yourstory.com/2024/01/ola-electric-two-wheelers-bike...
It’s before my morning coffee, so I’m likely missing something. How is the factory worker earning less? Are subsidies huge?
Yep. If you earn less that $3k a year,
1. You pay no income tax
2. You get heavily subsidized groceries (what would cost $30/mo becomes $10/mo)
3. You can buy a heavily subsidized apartment (PMAY-U)
4. Depending on the state, you can get free electricity, water, etc.
5. If you are in a semi-rural area, you can get psudeo-UBI via the MGNREGA program
With all of this, you can end up netting an additional $700-1.2k a year tax free.
Fundamentally, China and Vietnam were able to succeed at pushing people into factory work because these kinds of subsidies didn't exist, forcing people to choose between working at a factory or starve. Also, factories in China and Vietnam would build dormitories, but in India that falls foul of labor laws.
This is why most migrant workers in India are from the state of Bihar - the government in this state has been incompetent at running welfare programs, so rural poverty has not been alleviated.
That's dubious thinking. The hurdles to establishment of a manufacturing base are not labor shortages. The biggest issue in India is the ease of doing business[0] and the bureaucratic red tape. India ranks 136 in 190 countries in starting new businesses, among many other accolades.
[0] https://archive.doingbusiness.org/en/rankings [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24106545
The only major EV Car manufacturer in India is Tata Motors. They lobbied the Indian government to set EV Car GST at 5% instead of 50% like it is for other cars.
When Toyota India (and it's partners Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai India) started considering manufacturing Hybrids [0], Tata went on a lobbying blitz to prevent Plug-in Hybrids from getting similar tax treatment as EVs [1].
The Indian government ended up siding with Toyota [2]
Oh, btw. This entire story only happened in the past 3 months.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tata-m...
[2] - https://auto.hindustantimes.com/auto/cars/nitin-gadkari-bats...
It all comes down to India's Labor Laws and Land Acquisition Laws.
No one actually follows Labor Laws in India, but Enforcement Agencies and local Politicians will use them to extract bribes. You will invariably be breaking some labor law (eg. under Indian Labor Laws, you need to provide a baby room/creche for every woman), and as such you need to pay off the Trade Unions, local ruling Politician, local opposition Politician, the district labor commissioner, the district magistrate, etc.
In India, the laws are used as a way to extract the maximum number of bribes out of you.
This is why Tamil Nadu and Gujarat do so well at manufacturing in India - the politicans in both states are equally corrupt, but the ruling parties (DMK and BJP respectively) run a One-Party State where you only pay them off, and everyone has to listen.
If you pay off your GJ BJP MLA or your TN DMK MLA, you will be free to do whatever you want - similar to how you operate in Guangdong or HCMC.
In a lot of other states in India, corruption is nowhere near as streamlined.
Narendra Modi has been campaigning on radically reforming the LAA since he became Prime Minister in 2014, but he never got the supermajority needed to safely pass it.
The current 2024 election is basically being fought over this Land Reform Law [0].
The UCC, Ram Mandir, etc stuff is all a distraction from interests fighting for and against this law.
It's a good reform, but Modi isn't fighting for it out of altruism. Easier land acquisition makes it easier to manufacture mass housing under the PMAY-U program, which would basically make Singaporean style HDBs for Indians. Once that is in place, the BJP will win elections for the next 20 years, because they've provided modern housing (and the ability to get rich from graft on the way).
[0] - https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/land-reforms-included...
Food security, Housing, and UBI are the three holy grails - whichever party successfully delivers on all 3 becomes invincible for a generation, and why the BJP has been doing what it's doing.
[0] - https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2017/02/04/i...
It’s not uncommon for lawsuits in India to get ‘stuck’ for decades or longer, while squatters do their thing to property without involvement from police, and the mob (as in groups of angry people) just does what it wants with no effective penalties or accountability.
India was formed by non-consensually welding together 200+ long term distinct religio-ethno-socio states, and pretending they are all one country.
In China, and to a lesser extent Vietnam, it’s a different dynamic.
If the communist party likes you, you can do whatever you want and quickly. If they don’t, good luck surviving at all. And the ethnic groups are limited and small minorities. So there is a coherent majority whose interests can be known and that can be appeased.
So if you’re in the good graces there, it’s speedy, efficient, and profitable.
India, there is no one group effectively in charge (at least anymore), and you’re constantly dealing with having to pay off or work around yet another different group that somehow was able to get themselves in a position they could force you to pay them. Often dozens in any one area.
And because the ‘Indian’ identity is relatively weak compared to their more specific ethnic/caste identity, it’s much harder to override for the ‘greater good’.
Most states in India have a single party ruling, and it's fairly easy to understand who to be chummy with, and how to operate a JV.
The issue is swing states have competing political poles internally, which slows down the ability to operate as you need to deal with 2x the overhead.
Even in China and Vietnam you have a similar mentality, but the difference is it's all part of a single party.
Furthermore, at least in VN's case, you have the exact same problems as India if not worse. The main difference is most factories in VN end up getting built in the Red River Delta region (Hanoi-Haiphong), so there is a strong network effect.
Once you go to other cities in Vietnam (eg. Pleiku, Can Tho) you lack the kind of administration that has experience dealing with foreign investors and businesses, forcing you to have to make JVs.
India is basically a country with 26 Vietnams - some of those states have fairly decent institutional capacity, others less so.
I will say, it’s a lot more than 26 Vietnams in India though, since most decent sized Cities have their own nested level of Chaos going on that likes to ignore the larger state infrastructure and is highly resistant to outside intervention. At least in most areas I’ve seen.
And that is also ignoring the Muslim/hindu/jain/sikh/etc. friction going on within each area too. And the occasional random bombings, mob ‘interactions’, etc.
Money does talk though.
I’ll also say, I’ve never been called an orientalist before - that’s cool. I guess?
The moment any large manufacturing facility is cleared through the red tape, speculators buy up all the land in the vicinity, making the entire supply chain more expensive.
You can work on red tape and ease of doing business, but the simple reason why Indian small and medium manufacturing units never graduate to large scale is because they simply can’t acquire the land to grow.
A 362+ seat range in the LS is enough to push through the LARR repeal without being negatively impacted by defections.
[0] - https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/land-reforms-included...
Depends on which scheme/welfare program you're using.
The ones managed by the Federal/Central Government have better QAing and because of Aadhar it's much harder to do shenanigans and steal en masse. The brands provided are also available at your local Indian grocery store [0].
State Level schemes tend to be of varying quality. Some states (eg. Himachal, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Kerala) are able to maintain a high quality, but other states (eg. Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh) are unable to properly execute.
The Pakistani PDS collapsed because the hoarding and backroom dealing you mentioned. It fundamentally wasn't a bad program, it just lacked the institutional infrastructure needed to prevent corruption and lossage. The same thing happened in India until Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) like Aadhar was rolled out. With Aadhar, UPI, etc, it's easier to detect anomalous disbursements and thus root out corruption, as you have an audit trail.
Federal Schemes in India all require Aadhar/Biometric Validation. State Level Schemes don't require biometric validation, and as such can (and have) been abused.
Taxes in India are computed in "slabs" of different rates. I believe everyone in India are allowed to exclude $3.5K from their annual income for computing their tax obligation. Of course, those making less that $3.5K do not pay any taxes. But those making over $3.5K do not pay any taxes for the first $3.5K of their annual income. So, there is no incentive to earn less as OP seems to suggest.
I agree (I couldn't edit it by the time the limit ended)!
The bigger issue is factory work is unappealing because working 10-12 hours a day under the table earning $250-300/mo doesn't make sense for most people.
Rural and lower class life does suck (heck my dad grew up in a jhuggi), but earning money for yourself is better than being at the mercy of a factory owner who can and often holds back your salary and doesn't provide housing.
That's a major differentiator between Chinese and Indian style factories - Chinese factories provide dormitories but Indian ones can't due to some regulatory issues.
Furthermore, most well paying factories aren't established in smaller towns or non-tier 1 metros, and the kind of demographic who would be open to working at a factory doesn't want to leave their hometown to take a massive risk living as a migrant worker in Chennai or Noida.
And that's why you see the boom in e-rickshaws in Tier 3/4 metros and small towns - it's an easy way to start your own business that's paying somewhat decently, and in most states welfare disbursement is "good enough" (as in better than 5 years ago).
That said, this is a localized maxima, and major reforms are needed, because this kind of an unorganized industry is going to eventually crash due to oversaturation.
Already from a financial standpoint, an EV is much cheaper than a Gas Car in India (an entry level Tata EV costs $9-10k after tax, and an entry level ICE Maruti Suzuki costs around $9-11k after tax), but everyone is holding out on buying one until the charging infrastructure is actually built.
The charging network in India just doesn't exist. At most there might be 2 charging ports at a gas station, and oftentimes the station attendants just don't maintain them leading to broken chargers.
Infra enhancement is happening, but it will take 4-7 years to happen.
This is why Hybrids are becoming popular - the taxes on them got dropped to the same amount as an EV, and you won't face range anxiety as you can switch back to gas.
Unless these gas stations are also 30+ minute shopping/eating destinations, the chargers ought to be places that are.
They ain't
> the chargers ought to be places that are
Some are, but the maintenance issue comes up again.
Would battery swapping be a viable alternative? Obviously not swapping random batteries; but those made and mainatined by the manufacturer.
Cars are the future. People prefer cars. They just can't afford them.
People drive auto-rickshaws and e-rickshaws because it's both a mode of transport AND a self run business.
The Indian gov and private sector players like Reliance, Tata, etc are investing in building an e-charging network, but it will take 4-7 years.
You just answered your own question: most people can't afford cars. And even if they could afford a car, where would you park them?
And it's changing rapidly. Financing is much easier and salaries have grown significantly.
30 years ago, your only choices for a car were a Maruti Suzuki 800 or an Ambassador.
20 years ago car financing started in India, and multiple private sector car manufacturers like Hyundai, Toyota, Renault, etc entered the market.
And over the past 15 years car ownership has grown from around 90 million cars to 330 million cars.
As India grows richer, people buy cars.
> where would you park them
Congested street parking. Most Indian cities have some amount of space. They aren't all tiny alleys that can barely fit people
Look. India and developing countries aren't Western Europe.
A 2 wheeler or 3 wheeler isn't seen as prestigious - a car is the aspirational image of the middle class. Doesn't matter if it's India, Vietnam, or Indonesia - this is the mentality.
What's with the gora poverty backchodi.
Don't forget the Fiat!!
I grew up in an India where even phones were a luxury, so I do have some background. I live in a medium-sized (Tier-2) city. There is absolutely no place to park cars. People park on busy roads and just walk away, making traffic much worse.
> What's with the gora poverty backchodi.
Maybe ask your dad? He would be about my age.
300 USD per month means ₹3,00,000 per year; remember then to take into account the Section 87A rebate, which amounts to you paying no tax if your total income is less than ₹7,00,000 (5 lakh in previous years).
Given that many small businesses often accept UPI payments in multiple names (husband, wife, mother etc), a small family can actually manage ₹1,500,000-3,000,000 in (legitimate) tax free income.
That is about $18-36,000.
Which is a lot in India.
An auto rickshaw, 15 minutes, and two different bribes to the traffic police did the trick though.
I think I can add that to my list of near death experiences for sure.
Sodium batteries is going to be a boom for India. 2x cheaper (albeit heavier), charges in 5-15 minutes.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota...
Auto Rickshaw unions are VERY politically powerful. One former member has become Chief Minister (Eknath Shinde) and have played a major role in swinging elections in Delhi (INC to AAP), Karnataka (BJP to INC), and Telangana (BRS to INC).
E-Rickshaws are excluded from these unions, as most e-rickshaw drivers tend to be migrant workers from poorer areas like Bihar or Eastern UP while Auto Rickshaw drivers tend to be locals of the state.
By advertising as being petrol, that means they are part of the Auto Rickshaw unions, so you as an e-rickshaw driver or police officer know not to mess with them.
The market and business environment in India is entirely different from the US.
Charging infra will eventually get built in India, but it will take 4-7 years at least.
At that point it makes sense to save a bit more money to buy a $12k Toyota or Maruti Suzuki hybrid instead of spending $9k on a Tata EV.
The Toyota and Maruti Hybrid will have a longer range, and you don't need to worry about running out of battery in a random town in the middle of nowhere in India - a country where the law and order situation is not great.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinas...
"Ola subsidizes that's why people are buying 2wheelers"
That's whats happened in USA, EU, China or anywhere else for that matter.
"No ev charging stations"
Reliance already got into the charging station business and most importantly there are startups convincing third-parties to turn their homes into charging stations which I believe is the right solution
Ola has explicitly stated that they will make Ola drivers start using Ola Electric e-bikes [0], and the overwhelming majority of 2 wheeler EV sales are Ola Electric bikes.
> Reliance already got into the charging station business and most importantly there are startups convincing third-parties to turn their homes into charging stations which I believe is the right solution
Most of the Jio gas stations (like the ones in my ancestral village) only add 1 or at most 2 charging stations for EV cars, and Reliance corporate doesn't provide maintenance support.
Those same startups trying to convince people make homes into charging stations simply won't succeed outside of urban areas because of the trust deficit that exists.
The future of the Indian EV sector is in Tier 3-4 metros and small towns. That is where the majority of Indian urbanization is happening, and even where most of the sale for e-rickshaws are happening.
Charging stations will eventually get built, but it's a 4-7 year process.
[0] - https://yourstory.com/2024/01/ola-electric-two-wheelers-bike...
[1] - https://yourstory.com/2024/01/ola-to-deploy-two-wheeler-evs
The 3rd party chargers (eg. at the Jio gas stations or at that dhaba on the NH) tend to have varying levels of maintenance, as these are franchisees and installed them as way to get some free money from corporate (eg. the one in my family's ancestral village in HP - they installed it to get some free cash from Reliance, but they aren't providing any maintenance).
That said, the EV chargers at the dealerships are well maintained.
This is the same issue in the US with Tesla's Supercharger network being superior to Electrify America because the former is directly owned and managed by Tesla, whereas the latter is a franchisee model. Whenever a Tesla Supercharger goes down, Tesla will send a mechanic to fix it. Whenever an Electrify America charger goes down, it takes weeks to get repaired.
A dealership driven charging network would probably solve the issues in India, as just about every small town has 4-5 different dealerships located on major highways and roads, and it would have better QC from corporate (as well as the fact that dealerships need to maintain their own charging infra in order to sell the car).
EVs have crossed the 6% threshold of volume of all vehicles sold in India.
India's EV migration will start from 2 wheeler and 3 wheeler EVs. Public transport is already migrating to EV based. City buses have already migrated to EVs in cities like Pune and other cities are catching up.
Cars and long distance transport trucks will be last. You can read up on the EV statistics here - https://www.autocarpro.in/analysis-sales/over-34-million-evs...
In India, the 4-stroke came in big right around the time when leaded fuel got banned. The anti-knock stuff only really worked properly on a 4-stroke, so you'll notice that it took somewhere between 2000 and 2005 to really kill the new vehicle market for 2S.
However, the sound, that is what is completely different about these - you can actually talk on your phone sitting in the electric versions, while the petrol ones need you to shout over it when it goes up a hill.
The most interesting intersection for me was the mobile app and the EV charger combo the drivers use.
In my last visit to Kerala there were plug points under some street lights which could charge these 3-wheelers at 240v at 15amps off the pole.
These guys would just be parked right under one of those, with their mobile apps open & they'll unplug only once they get a pickup location, keeping their batteries perpetually topped up when idle.
the last mile transport rental market was quite ripe to complement the gig economy guys pre-pandemic but i wonder if it will recover for regular commuters in major cities to the same level.
> a partnership between Kakkar and his partner Sanjeev Pahwa’s cycle-rickshaw company and a traditional tuk-tuk manufacturer.
I have never heard the term tuk-tuk used in India — I believe it’s a Thai word used in some other countries. Of course the rickshaw and, cycle rickshaw and auto-rickshaw were all imports via the British. But the term jumped out while reading the sentence.
> the natural magnet for the motor and critical minerals for the battery, have to come from China because they do not naturally occur in India
While it’s unsurprising that the (likely rare earth — India has iron) magnet et al have to be imported, it’s not like rare earths are rare, and a country the size of India and with its geography could find them, and eventually will (as the article says they are with lithium).
81% of all EV batteries in India are Lead-Acid [0]
From a Lithium dependency standpoint, the Indian government made exclusivity deals with Australia, Argentina, and Chile [1][2] to mine Lithium and transfer lithium enrichment technology to Indian companies. That said, it would take a decade for this to pan out.
> But the term jumped out while reading the sentence
Shows the credibility (or lack thereof) of the article. There is an EV boom in India, but this article accidentally turned into a submarine article.
[0] - https://www.batteriesinternational.com/2022/09/01/lead-in-dr...
[1] - https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/india-tapping-i...
[2] - https://eastasiaforum.org/2024/01/27/indias-long-road-to-lit...
I have read somewhere that the black sands of Kerala's coast are black due to thorium. I have read that more than once, in different places.
I just googled monazite:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monazite
Excerpt:
[ Monazite is an important ore for thorium,[8] lanthanum, and cerium.[9] It is often found in placer deposits. India, Madagascar, and South Africa have large deposits of monazite sands. The deposits in India are particularly rich in monazite.
Monazite is radioactive due to the presence of thorium and, less commonly, uranium. ]
(By mainstream I mean pertaining to less niche topics, e.g. articles about market penetration of alternative form factor EVs, vs. "the new version of eslint is now stable")
BTW my bit about mining and India's geography: it's not just that the subcontinent is large, and mining is a statistics game, but because it has (I don't know the official term) "collision" mountains (like California's Sierras and not like the Appalachian range that crosses north america and Europe) there are lots of opportunities for underground minerals to be brought to the surface. I expect India will be a resource exporter like Australia and Russia within the next 50 years.
Articles written to be read by audiences not the subject. For a global audience tuk tuk is the better word
I have heard the term tuk-tuk used in India, but only sparingly and only in the last few years, mainly by foreign tourists.
Before that and even now, the common terms used were / are rickshaw / riksha, auto-rickshaw and just plain auto; auto is the one used most commonly by Indians (probably because a lot of us use C; just kidding, ha ha, the percentage of devs to the total population is a drop in the bucket.
I've also heard the term tuk-tuk used a good amount in digital nomad videos, particularly about southeast Asia, so you're probably right, gumby, about it being a Thai-origin term.
Almost all the stories seem to pitch this as a battle between the two camps, when I feel the obvious conclusion is that they'll accelerate each other as they both make people comfortable and familiar with electric motors and their various benefits (lower noise, pollution, running costs , oil imports etc.)
They also pair well with electric busses and trains for last mile transport of people and electric trucks for last mile delivery of goods.
This is both another evolutionary path for EVs and it shows that EVs can be lighter, cheaper, and have a different sweet spot than electric cars.
Which may not matter much. People care about getting from A to B, quick & affordable.
With big cities getting more crowded (and thus, traffic jams & parking space at a premium), smaller 2- or 3-wheel electric vehicles have a leg up vs. full sized cars. Enough so that they replace [gasoline/diesel powered cars] faster than electric cars do.
Purchase / maintanance costs, tax incentives etc also work in favor of these smaller / lighter vehicles.
Also, women tend to get groped more on bicycles/bikes, and weather is a big problem. The shade on an auto rickshaw in Hyderabad, or when it rains in Bangalore are pretty handy.
It's just a very solid obstacle to this becoming a major way of travelling unless something is done about bike theft.
In my “fantasy political manifesto”, I think roads should be (re)arranged so that every child can walk or cycle to school. My new amendment is to add local light electric traffic (those god-awful scooters) and something like these rickshaws, on physically seperate but parallel routes.
Yes a 15 minute walkable city is nice, but a 15 minute drive opens up almost everything
Pay for it by taxing the wealthy btw. Delenda est carthago
This. I'd love to use an electric bakfiets to move my kids and myself around, but I'd be doing it on roads where people are moving around 1-2 tonne pieces of steel inches from the bike... The safety engineering of these bikes (and rickshaws) are just nowhere near a car, and unfortunately in my environment I cannot ensure sufficient distance.
My point is that the safety engineering is pretty good because the threats are so much smaller. Cars need protection because they move in very dangerous ways. Infrastructure is important because there is no way to be safe from a car crashing into you at 50mph.
That aside, the costs of initiatives like these will be enormous. They need to be financed with (or so projectmanagers tell me) those "XL penthouse" apartments and other larger offerings. There are basically no takers for that, not in the least because they'll be significantly north of 1 million euros. Even the affordable housing is generally pricy (think 350000+) and anything in those price ranges will be in the absolute minority.
If there is anything at all around 300000, it will be specifically for a so-called "middle income bracket". This is a very hard to attain bracket unless you are a two-person family with a relatively high but not very high income. For average incomes this bar is very hard to clear.
All that to say, it is clearly not made for most people in the country. Aspirational neighbourhoods meant only for rich people are available in many countries (as a specific enclave). It's part of what you pay for in such a location.
With kids attitudes are more of a problem.When I a kid a lot of kid used to come to school by public transport, but parents are a lot more protective these days.
My teenager does quite a lot by public transport and walking. The main problem is services are not frequent enough between towns (in Warwickshire).
IMO we should tax cars by weight and size, and restrict parking spaces for larger cars.
Reduce two-lane roads into single lane roads and make better use of the "removed" lane to transport people via bikes, scooters and even rickshaws (I don't see the advantage of having a three-wheeler when a decent cargo bike would work better).
However, I don't think e-rickshaws will take off in the UK as our roads are already too crammed. Two wheelers (e-scooters and e-bikes) make more sense as they can avoid getting caught up in the four-wheeler congestion.
Also, there's some kind of fake culture war in the UK against any non-car-shaped transport option.
So, I'm not so sure electric rickshaws couldn't take off.
I'm not sure what the licensing requirements would be for e-rickshaws in the UK, though. I imagine you'd need registration, MOT and insurance for a non-pedal vehicle and that would make cargo bikes far more economical. If we had pedal e-rickshaws, they'd likely be limited to the same power as e-bikes and only for assist which would make them less popular and I can't see manufacturers being interested in making them.
What a fresh and novel idea. Top 1% of earners in UK account for more than a third of income tax btw.
Top 1% of earners = income
Additionally, what proportion of total income does the top 1% account for? For instance, if they make 1/3rd of all income then paying 1/3rd of all tax is an amazing deal for them. if they only make 1/20th of all income, maybe less so.
I personally treat all capital appreciation as income for the purposes of net worth tracking.
That makes no sense.
Society benefits by rewarding people who work. And society benefits by dissuading people from not working and collecting rent.
They can write off expenses in some cases, and capital gains are rightfully treated differently, but those are not the same situation.
In the US, we even have a lower tax rate (the capital gains tax rate) for dividends if you have held the asset for more than a year.
Even step up basis when assets get inherited is a bad incentive, not to mention the $13M federal gift tax exemption.
If you want people to swing hammers and perform surgeries, then don’t tax swinging hammers or performing surgeries (or tax it less).
And if you don’t want people living off their or their ancestor’s hoarded wealth, tax it so they either do something with it or dump it so someone else can. This segways into significantly higher land value taxes.
In the US, we even reward people who just sit on unproductive real estate by deferring all taxes via 1031 exchanges (you sell one property and buy another, and there’s no tax). And on top of that, you pay excessively low land value taxes for this store of wealth that the rest of society maintains and protects for you.
income occurs without a change in control of some asset, due to dividends, pass through profits, wages, etc.
They’re fundamentally different types of things happening.
For example: rent == income. Selling the house? Capital gains.
As to if they are or should be taxed at different rates is orthogonal to if they are different types of events.
I can assure you, anyone that owns a home or stocks really would like to avoid treating them the same way. Which is a huge portion of the population, not just some random 1%’er somewhere.
And ‘unproductive’ real estate still pays property taxes.
There is no such thing as a free lunch, but there definitely are places that will make you broke if you eat there every day.
Long term capital gains and dividends are taxed at the same rate in the US. If a company doesn't currently pay dividends its stock price goes up because of a combination of:
a) inflation
b) the expectation of future dividends
c) stock buybacks (a dividend by another name)
So long term capital gains are mostly either dividends or the expectation of dividends.
> capital gains can only occur when you sell something you bought
The ultra-rich can borrow against appreciated assets and never sell. Their heirs inherit much of it tax free and with a stepped up cost basis.
The only dividends that can get taxed like capital gains are qualified dividends and they’re very rare. Because they are dividends from selling capital assets in a business or the like. All other types of dividends are taxed like income.
Which is why the behavior around capital gains.
The loan situation is very very specialized, and loans that aren’t paid back in a reasonable amount of time or have no interest get considered as either gifts or income by the IRS.
For someone sufficiently high net worth, I’m sure there are ways to play various shell games for awhile in this - and if sufficiently frugal, even past their death.
But property taxes still get paid every year, income taxes still get paid on income, and capital gains still get paid when there is an actual sale.
for example, Elon Musk also eventually had to pay the largest tax bill ever as an individual to finance his shenanigans. $11 billion dollars.
How does that fit in your theory?
This is incorrect. Lots of dividend income is classified as a qualified dividend.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/q/qualifieddividend.asp
>A dividend is considered qualified if the shareholder has held a stock for more than 60 days in the 121-day period that began 60 days before the ex-dividend date.
>This is getting really weird.
It is not weird at all. We tax wealth all the time. Every state/county has a property tax, some even have a property tax on vehicles. The simplest explanation is this, does society benefit from people hoarding wealth? For how many years? 1 year, 5 years, 10 years? Multiple generations?
Would it not be better if people were forced to get off their ass and continuously earn their keep? Or at least set marginal levels for the amount of wealth one can hoard? Sure, hit the ball out of the park and earn $10M, $100M, $1B. Enjoy it for 5, 10, hell even 20 years. But how does society benefit from this person or family creating an everlasting dynasty?
Weird.
"A dividend is considered qualified if the shareholder has held a stock for more than 60 days in the 121-day period that began 60 days before the ex-dividend date."[1]
I don't know where you got the idea that they're rare. You literally have to hold a US stock for a few months and any dividends from it are qualified.
> How does that fit in your theory?
That Elon Musk's impulsive behavior makes for bad tax planning? I hope I never get into a situation where my poor decisions create an $11b tax bill for me.
1. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/q/qualifieddividend.asp
That's the challenge. Seperate, but equal is hard. Routing separarated multiple everything to everything paths for at least three classes (walkers and slow? cyclists, light vehicles and fast? cyclists, cars) gets really difficult where there are intersections, because either the separate paths cross at most intersections, or you're building an awful lot of tunnels and bridges.
As a cyclist, there's also a major conflict within cylists with regard to speed. When you're cycling only a little faster than walkers, it's fine to be on a pedestrian trail, but somewhere around 15 mph, it's not really good for either cyclists or pedestrians to be combined; at that point, IMHO, it's better to be with faster traffic.
Sounds like the real problem is a lack of familiarity than anything inherent to the design.
Tuk tuk are three wheelers and handle like a reliant robin and can tip over quite easily .
E-scooters does the same thing better as you hint and they can be rented too . It doesn’t help all that much today .
They won't. Bajaj Automotive lobbied for this as a Hail Mary to save them after Egypt, Thailand, and other markets began the process of phasing out 3 wheelers, and all political parties agree that it helps undercut the goondagiri Auto Rickshaw unions (eg. Maharashtra's CM Eknath Shinde started his career as an auto rickshaw goonda)
Do you have any insight as to why this is? Why are e-rickshaws more dangerous than ICE auto rickshaws or bicycle rickshaws? Shouldn't they be inherently more stable than both of those if you put the heavy battery in the floor?
> They are easy to tip over, for example, when going over a pothole filled with water after rains.
Do you know why they don't they use larger front wheels from off-road motorcycles (or bike wheels like the traditional bicycle rickshaws)?
E-rickshaws need to keep costs down.
This is because there are a lot of benefits of buying an auto rickshaw (eg. Union membership, not getting beat up with a tire iron, less bribes, access to parking). And the prices are already at $2.5-3k.
This means most e-rickshaws need to be priced at $500-1.5k to be cost effective.
This means these e-rickshaws are macgyverred in local factories using lead acid batteries, weaker frames, low speeds, etc.
I am not talking about crash testing or anything that sophisticated. Something as basic as the tendency to overturn is much higher. I have seen one happen right beside me, when one of the wheels went into a pothole, and the rickshaw tilted and overturned. A traditional auto (the standard Bajaj model ICE, for example) would have "jumped", but not overturned.
On this same note, the Bajaj ICE is slightly narrower at the top than the base, in a tapered design - this will increase stability.
Piaggio Ape is tapered towards the top and has backwheels turned inwards -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_Ape#/media/File:Ape_Ca...
e-rickshaws show none of these features.
Most are using a low range lead acid battery you'd use for a gokart
They're death traps
It would have to change few habits, but combined with a swapping battery all Gogoro for instance, it could be a nice solution for public transportation.
Life is cheap in India, there are tons of videos featuring people falling off bikes/overturned rickshaws head first straight under the wheel of a truck.
Auto rickshaws are much better than bikes in this and several other fronts when in heavy traffic, but also get stuck way easier in said heavy traffic.
There are reasons they are so popular though, no doubt!
These little e-rikshaws seems to be the main transportation mode for local people here. I saw different kinds of these lean e-rikshaws in New Delhi too.
I recall the particulates in the air of decades past being super hard on the lungs.
It would be nice to cut down on any one source, and cars are definitely a big problem, but not the only one.
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.
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
[0] - https://m.economictimes.com/industry/renewables/govt-to-take...
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
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-increase-coal-...
Considering how dirty most gas-powered rickshaws have been, I have to assume that the electric versions are much much cleaner in this regard.
A CNG auto-rickshaw is also similarly light on fumes.
In all honesty, all three-wheelers need to be banned in India, but it will never happen because that's political suicide.
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.
Toxic af.
> One of my expat buddies in Saigon owned a small scooter repair shop
Oh whoa! Which quan was this? I subsisted off Grab so I never had to worry about scooter repair.
Shop used to be here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/mwR8F7gCey1W2HUb7
I'm 99% sure he shut it down during covid though.
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.
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.
Don't know how good it is, though.
Probably, being laid off, or even otherwise, they have no life, and nothing better to do, than downvote innocuous replies to comments.
Way to go, dust eater!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_One_Bites_the_Dust
P.S. check out the supposedly Satanic meaning of the words in reverse,
Funny.
It is true that rickshaws are the epitome of beautiful design..
is now an impediment to movility innovation
"ongoing pedestrian safety crisis in the US in which fatalities are at a 40-year high and the number of pedestrians killed has increased by 80 percent since hitting a low in 2009."
https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/14/23960624/truck-suv-hood-...
https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes...
This is hardly a crisis.
The 3-wheel design wouldn't allow for pedestrians in collisions "rolling over the top" but perhaps it's narrow enough that they could be knocked off to the side more easily?
At the very least, being run over by one is probably much less dangerous than being run over by a larger car closer to the typical size in the western world.
> Baran is not an engineer by education. He started working at the factory in 2017 as a helper — dusting, cleaning, and organizing items. A year later, he got the opportunity to upskill and get trained in welding by Chinese engineers. Nearly 80% of Baran’s 200 co-workers have followed a similar trajectory. “[They] taught us all the work,” Baran told Rest of World. “They taught us welding — how to put the parts and cut them. Over time, I picked up the work and got promoted. Now, our people can also teach these things.”
They're teaching people to fish. It's not out-sourcing (from China into India), it's talent development.
> “The link [with the Chinese suppliers] became so good that they also believed in us, invested money with us, and shared technology with us,” Kakkar said. Chinese engineers stayed “for days” to train welders like Baran when the factory first opened, he said.
This is how you build partnerships and loyalty, and develop sustainable business relationships.
> His company’s ethos, according to Kakkar, is “Make in India, but technology from China.”
An apt summary of how we should be helping each other across the globe.