Terra Motors prepares for rapid growth

Terra Motors Corp — a Japanese company that develops and manufactures electric scooters and ‘tuk-tuks’ — has secured $10 million of funding from Mizuho Capital and other investors to finance its operations in Asia, where it aims to achieve 100,000 sales by 2015.

The Tokyo-based company is to increase production of its A4000i e-scooter in Vietnam, while manufacturing more electric three-wheelers in the Philippines. It will set up operations in India and Bangladesh this year, followed by Indonesia, Taiwan and Thailand in the next few years.

CEO Toru Tokushige said: “We need to focus on the Asian market. More than 30 million electric two-wheelers were sold in China in 2013, while hundreds of thousands of electric three-wheelers have already been sold in India and Bangladesh because of the high price of gasoline. Our short-term goal is to take the lead in the Asian market; our long-term goal is to create a company with rapid growth — beyond that of Samsung and Apple.”