China’s electric farm trucks are very different than ours. I went there to see how
When I recently took a trip to China to see the world of electric micromobility, I was greeted with a wide range of personal electric vehicles. From e-bikes to e-scooters and even e-dirt bikes, I saw it all. But one of the most interesting examples, and clearly the most divergent from our own vehicles in the West, was what I saw while touring Wuzheng’s electric three-wheeler factory.
I know, I know. This isn’t what most of us think of when we hear the words “farm truck.” Trust me, I get it. I spent the first couple decades of my life in the southeastern US, a good ol’ southern boy. I grew up running through cornfields, barrel racing, and taking dates to watch the tractor pulls and demolition derbies at the county fair. In other words, I know rural living and what it means to work with your hands as a way of life. My current truck may be far from the typical work truck you’ll see on most farms and ranches, but I get it.
And so, while taking the bullet trains that cut through extremely rural areas of China, I was amazed to see both sights I recognized well and things that were completely new to most Westerners. At the end of the day, farmers are farmers. Their farmers may swap out our worn-out ball caps for their wider conical straw hats, but they put in the same long days in the fields that we do. More interesting to me though, was what they were using instead of our work trucks.
In the vast landscapes of rural China, electric three-wheeled vehicles seem to have become an indispensable part of daily life for farmers and workers. There, these vehicles are valued for their affordability, versatility, and efficiency.
Farmers use these electric trikes for a wide range of tasks, from transporting their harvests to local markets, to carrying fertilizers, tools, and crops across their fields.
The compact size and robust design of these vehicles make them ideal for steering around the narrow and often unpaved rural roads that characterize much of China’s countryside – places larger trucks would struggle to navigate. And without the need to buy or store expensive diesel, they can charge them up cheaply anywhere they can run an extension cord.
To see how these types of electric three-wheeler farm trucks are built, I went to visit the factory of one of the largest three-wheeler producers in the country, Wuzheng.
The company knows a thing or two about farm equipment. They’ve been building gas and diesel tractors and farm equipment since 1984, with their first combustion engine three-wheeler coming out around that time. They’ve since switched their three-wheelers over to electric drive, which makes them more reliable and requires less maintenance. Plus, they cost significantly less to own and operate with the reduced maintenance and lower fuel costs of electric vehicles. That reduced cost of ownership is a major reason I saw so many electric three-wheelers all over rural China and used on almost every farm I passed through.
One of the key reasons for the widespread adoption of electric three-wheelers among rural Chinese communities is their cost-effectiveness. Traditional vehicles like tractors or trucks are often prohibitively expensive for small-scale farmers and rural workers. In contrast, electric trikes are significantly cheaper to purchase and maintain. Additionally, the cost of electricity used to charge these vehicles is substantially lower than that of gasoline or diesel, making them an economically sustainable option for daily use. This affordability extends the mobility and operational range of rural workers, enabling them to transport heavier loads over longer distances with minimal expense.
The design is also optimized for daily work. The bed is lower than a typical pickup truck bed, making it easier to load, especially over the long side rails. The three-wheelers usually have tailgates and side gates, allowing them to convert into flat-bed trucks in seconds. The bed almost always tilts, turning them into dump trucks when necessary.
Visiting Wuzheng’s factory gave me a lot of insight into how the company is able to produce hundreds of thousands of these electric three-wheelers every year.
At this single factory, just one of many in Wuzheng’s sprawling grounds, there were a pair of assembly lines running side-by-side. Both lines cranked out electric three-wheelers, with one producing open-top variants and the other producing models with fully enclosed cabs.
Both styles are popular for different use cases, and the underlying frame and components are largely the same. To create both, the company begins with the raw materials in another massive warehouse next door. There, giant spools of steel sheets are cut and stamped into the sheet metal panels surrounding the vehicle.
At the same time, steel tubes are cut, formed, and welded into the frame and subassemblies of the three-wheelers.
The jobs are done mostly manually, with different workers specializing in different aspects, from manning the cutting and forming machines to welding the individual frame members and cab panels. Unlike some other factories we’ve seen with increased levels of automation, the process seems to be completed largely with human workers instead of robotics. As automation is still sweeping across the Chinese manufacturing industry, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more robotic operations added in the coming years.
From there, the frames and bodies are passed on to the coating and painting stage, where they begin to take on their recognizable forms.
The bare chassis almost resembles what we’d consider a ‘normal’ truck body, and it’s not until that single front wheel is added that the trike character shines through.
And that’s exactly what comes next, as those chassis move on to the assembly lines. Here is where they turn from a pile of parts into fully-functional work vehicles.
A series of stations equipped with gantry cranes lower major sections of the vehicles into place as workers manually mount the components.
From there, the vehicles are finished with Wuzheng’s branding and then driven right off the end of the assembly line into the staging yard ahead of final testing and loading onto trucks to distribute them across the country.
Wuzheng has hundreds of dealers spread around the country, and as one of the largest electric three-wheeler makers, sells hundreds of thousands of these machines every year.
But before two different styles of the company’s machines could make it onto a truck for delivery, I got the chance to borrow them for a few minutes and have my own joyride around the complex.
The first model I tested was an open-top variety, which represents the majority of electric three-wheelers you see in rural areas of China. It’s also the most cost-effective, since you don’t have the extra expense and complexity of an enclosed cab.
Without doors, it’s easy to hop on and off repeatedly, which you very well may be doing as you ride around fields and tend to any number of tasks.
These are usually rated for carrying many hundreds of kilograms and sometimes even over a metric ton (2,200 pounds). Riding around with an empty bed was obviously not taxing the machine, so I asked several of the company’s employees to hop aboard with me. Even with four adult men (or three adult men and one man-child journalist), the performance was unchanged.
And that make sense, since it’s common to see these electric three-wheelers loaded high with heavy cargo such as farm crops, or used for delivering bulk products like cases of heavy bottled drinks. They regularly carry hundreds of kilograms of goods, and so they’re built with torquey electric motors to handle that load.
Next, I hopped into an enclosed vehicle. This time, the cab included doors and a weather-sealed interior. Interestingly, the handlebars for the single front wheel were replaced by a steering wheel. Since you couldn’t see the single wheel in front of you, it really felt more like a standard four-wheeled vehicle from the inside.
Again, the power was more than sufficient, and it handled quite nicely. Neither machine had a particularly sophisticated suspension setup, but they were perfectly fine for riding around the bumpy complex we were touring.
The enclosed version obviously offers a big advantage during inclement weather, allowing riders to stay dry during rain or even use air-conditioning during hot summers.
The main question most people are probably wondering about is stability. We all know that three-wheelers aren’t as stable as four-wheelers, so what about tip-overs?
I can tell you that from testing the vehicles myself and doing parking lot donuts, I never felt like I had any issues with rollover. The machines put their heavy batteries low on the chassis, and the motor is mounted even lower on the axle.
That means the machine’s center of gravity is so low that you’d probably have to hit a hairpin turn at speeds faster than these are capable of to actually roll one.
This isn’t like the electric tricycle e-bikes I often cover, which can easily lift a wheel in sharp turns. For those, you’ve got a rider that weighs more than the machine sitting high up above the centerline axis. With these Chinese farm trucks, your rider is a small fraction of the total vehicle weight, which is designed to keep a super low center of gravity and optimize stability. When the majority of your weight is axle height, tipping the vehicle over is quite a chore.
Visiting Wuzheng’s factory and experiencing this style of work vehicle firsthand was an eye-opening experience. Electric three-wheeled vehicles like these have become a crucial tool for Chinese farmers and rural workers due to their affordability, efficiency, environmental benefits, and practicality.
As rural China continues to modernize and seek sustainable development, these vehicles will likely remain a cornerstone of daily life, facilitating agricultural productivity and improving the quality of life for millions of people across the countryside. With prices starting at less than the equivalent of a thousand US dollars, these vehicles are a much more affordable and accessible option for average working families.
And just because they aren’t shaped like the farm trucks we’re used to, doesn’t mean they don’t move the same bales of hale or bushels of corn. They just do it with fewer wheels on the ground and more wind in your hair.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
For most of human history, currency was a direct claim on tangible, productive output. Before the abstraction of government fiat or cryptocurrency, value was stored in things that required real work and resources, bushels of grain, livestock, gold, assets with their own direct productive output: horses, and tragically, slaves.
These were the foundational assets of economies, representing a direct link between labor, resources, and stored value.
As we accelerate into an all-electric, all-digital age, this fundamental link is re-emerging, but with a new unit of account. The 21st-century economy, defined by automated industry, robotic, electric transport, and now power-hungry artificial intelligence, runs on a single, non-negotiable input: electricity. In this new paradigm, the real base currency, the ultimate representation of productive capacity, is the kilowatt-hour (kWh).
The kWh is the new economic base layer.
Last week, I was in Bijiashan Park at night overlooking Shenzhen, arguably the most technologically advanced city on earth, built over the previous few decades, partly on cheap electricity, cheap labor, and manufacturing innovations.
I could see the giant high-voltage power lines coming over Yinhu Mountain to power the constant light show that is Shenzhen at night. I couldn’t help but think about how cheap electricity and a strong grid have been critical to China’s exceptional economic rise.
As you stroll around the city, you see power everywhere. There are charging stations at every corner, including insane 1 MW charging posts, electric cars and trucks, trucks that carry batteries to electric scooter shops, which are also literally everywhere.
Everything moves on electric power. Industries are powered by electricity, and now, with the advent of AI, virtually everything is increasingly processed by LLMs, which are ultimately powered by electricity through power-hungry data centers.
In a world where everything runs on electricity, electricity itself becomes the currency of civilization.
It is measurable, divisible, storable, and universal – all qualities that a currency needs, but unlike fiat and crypto, it’s actually directly linked to productive output. No politics. No inflation. Just physics.
This concept is not merely academic; it appears to be the quiet, guiding principle in China. While others debate the merits of decentralized digital tokens, China is executing a multi-pronged strategy that treats electricity as the foundational strategic asset it has become.
First, China is building the “mint” for this new currency at an incredible, world-changing scale, and it has retained absolute state control over its distribution. Its deployment of new electricity generation, particularly from renewables, is staggering. The country met its 2030 target of 1,200 gigawatts of renewable capacity five years early, in 2025.
In 2024 alone, renewable energy accounted for a record 56% of the nation’s total installed capacity, with clean generation meeting 84% of all new demand.
Here’s a comparison of electricity generation between China and the US:
If this chart doesn’t scare the West. I don’t know what will. The trend is not reversing any time soon. In fact, it appears to be accelerating as China is doubling down on solar and nuclear.
State-owned monoliths manage this entire system, primarily the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), the world’s largest utility. For better or worse, this centralized control allows the state to execute massive national strategies impossible in a liberalized market, such as building an Ultra-High-Voltage (UHV) grid to transmit power from remote solar and wind farms in the west to the power-hungry industrial hubs on its coast.
Second, China wields its control over the grid as a precision tool of industrial policy. China’s average electricity rate of $0.084/kWh is cheaper than most of the rest of the world, but its power lies not in the base price but in its strategic application. The government deploys a “Differential Electricity Pricing” policy: a “stick” that penalizes low-tech, high-consumption industries with higher rates, and a “carrot” that provides preferential pricing to incentivize strategic sectors.
The most potent example is in the AI sector. China is now offering massive electricity subsidies, cutting power bills by up to half, for data centers run by giants like Alibaba and Tencent. The condition for this cheap power is that these companies must use locally-made, Chinese AI chips, such as those from Huawei.
China is spending its “electricity currency” to directly fund the growth of its domestic AI chip industry and sever its dependence on foreign technology. This same logic applies to its global dominance in green tech, where state-subsidized firms like BYD benefit from a state-controlled industrial ecosystem built on reliable, managed power.
Third, and possibly the most explicit exemplification of China viewing electricity as the base currency is its moves against cryptocurrency.
In 2021, the government banned all cryptocurrency transactions and mining. While the official reasons cited financial stability, the move might have had a deeper, strategic intention.
From the state’s perspective, it was a tool for capital flight, allowing wealth to bypass government controls. But in a world where electricity rules, cryptocurrencies are, in effect, a competing “currency” that burns the foundational asset (electricity) to create a decentralized store of value.
By banning crypto, China simultaneously reclaimed its monopoly on economic control and shut down a massive, “wasteful” leak of its most precious resource. It freed up that generating capacity to be strategically allocated to its preferred industries, like AI and manufacturing.
China’s actions, viewed together, are a clear and coherent strategy. By massively investing in and securing total state control over its domestic electricity supply (the “mint”), using its price as a tool to fuel strategic industries, and banning decentralized competitors that consume the same resource, China is making a clear bet. It has been recognized that in an age where all productivity is powered by the grid, the ultimate source of national power is not gold, fiat, or crypto, but the state-controlled kilowatt-hour.
The Blockchain and Crypto: Ledger vs. Furnace
This perspective brings a critical nuance to the role of blockchain technology. In an economy where electricity is the base currency, the blockchain makes perfect sense, but only as a ledger, not as a store of value.
A distributed ledger is the ideal technological layer to act as the accounting system for this new economy. It can track the generation, transmission, and consumption of every kilowatt-hour with perfect transparency. It can automate complex industrial contracts and manage the grid’s load balancing without a central intermediary. In this sense, blockchain is the “banking software” for the electricity standard.
However, “Proof of Work” cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin face a fatal contradiction within this paradigm. They aim to serve as a store of value by burning the base currency (electricity) to secure the network. If the kilowatt-hour is the 21st-century equivalent of gold, then Bitcoin mining is akin to melting down gold bars to print a paper receipt. It destroys the productive asset to create a derivative token.
Bitcoin is quickly losing credibility as a classical safe store of value. It trades like a security, at least over the last year, and its value is only whatever the next moron is willing to pay, with no valuable asset behind it.
China’s strategy reflects this precise understanding. While they ruthlessly banned Bitcoin mining (the “furnace” that wastes the asset), they have simultaneously championed the Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN) and the Digital Yuan. They have embraced the ledger to track and control their energy economy, while rejecting the supposed asset that destroys it.
This is a trap that crypto fans often fall into. They recognize the value of the blockchain, which is real, but they mistakenly broadly assign the same value to cryptocurrency, which is simply an application of the blockchain.
Electrek’s Take
What I’m trying to explore in this op-ed is the idea that if the present is electric and the future is even more electric, then it makes sense for electricity to be the foundation of the economy.
If electricity is the backbone of global trade and the metric of productivity, the kWh ultimately becomes the real currency of a truly electrified world.
And I think China has figured this out, as evidenced by its new electricity generation surpassing the rest of the world combined and by its ban on cryptocurrency.
They are going to let the rest of the world hold the crypto bag while they have more electricity generation than anyone to power their industries, which are already taking over the world.
I think the rest of the world should learn from this. Instead of pouring capital into meme coins and made-up stores of value, we should invest in electricity generation and storage.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
![Classic Jeep Grand Wagoneer gets a battery electric makeover [video]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/11/grand-wagoneer_EV_2.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Texas-based tuning firm Vigilante 4×4 is known for its wild, high-horsepower Jeep SJ Hemi restomods – but they’re more than just a hot rod shop. To prove it, they’ve developed a bespoke, all-electric skateboard chassis designed to turn the classic Jeep Grand Wagoneer into a modern, desirable electric SUV.
The scope of the Vigilante 4×4 electric chassis project is truly impressive. More than just a Jeep SJ frame with an electric drive train bolted in, the chassis is a completely fresh design that utilizes precise 3D scans of the original SJ Wagoneers, Grand Wagoneers, and J-Trucks to establish hard points, then fitted with low-slung battery packs to give the electric restomods superior weight balance, a lower center of gravity, and objectively improved ride and handling compared to its classic, ICE-powered forefathers.
The result is a purpose-built platform that delivers power to the wheels through a dual-motor system – one mounted in the front, and one at the rear – to provide a permanent, infinitely variable four-wheel drive system that offers both on-road performance and the kind of off-road capability that made the Grand Wagoneer famous in the first place.
Vigilante 4×4 electric Jeep SJ
“This isn’t a replacement for our Vigilante HEMI offerings,” reads the official copy. “It’s a total revisit of the Vigilante platform under electric power.”
The company emphasizes that its new chassis is still in the prototype stages. As such, there are no specs, there is no pricing, there are no range estimates. Despite it all, the response from Jeep enthusiasts has already been strong. “Keep in mind this is our first prototype,” a spokesperson said. “There’s still a lot of work to be done – but the journey has begun.”
Electrek’s Take
Retro done wrong – think the Dodge Charger Daytona EV or VW ID.Buzz – is a disaster. Always. If that nostalgic tone is just a little bit off, the song doesn’t work. The heartstrings don’t pull. Done right, however, the siren song of nostalgia will have you putting a second mortgage on your house to put a Singer Porsche or ICON Bronco in your garage.
It’s too soon to tell what side of that line the Vigilante 4×4 Jeep SJ will eventually fall, but one thing (at least) is certain: it’s closer to the mark than that Wagoneer S.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Vigilante 4×4, via Mopar Insiders.
If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
-
Sports2 years agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment1 year agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024