Sazgar Electric Rickshaws & Loaders

Sazgar Engineering Works (PSX-listed, Lahore) is the one electric rickshaw maker in Pakistan with an official, government-published price list - and that list says something very different from what the internet repeats. As of 2 August 2026, Sazgar's six EV three-wheelers are priced Rs 1,100,000-1,330,000 on the federal PAVE program's official portal: a passenger Deluxe EV, a 6-seater Shuttle EV, and a Tempo Electric Loader, each with a 72V lithium battery in 90Ah or 125Ah.

That is roughly double the "Sazgar electric rickshaw Rs 450,000-650,000" figure circulating on price blogs - a figure our own July 2026 guide also carried, and which we could not trace to any live listing today. The correction matters, so we lead with it: no verifiable Sazgar EV sells for under Rs 1.1 million as of 2 August 2026. The sub-Rs-650,000 segment is no-name, mostly lead-acid e-rickshaws - a category Sazgar says it deliberately refused to build.

Current Sazgar lineup and prices (2 August 2026)

All six prices below were read from the official PAVE portal (pave.gov.pk/vehicles, three-wheeler tab) on 2 August 2026 and independently corroborated by a scheme price list published at pavegovpk.com:

* Self-finance path: buyer pays the OEM in full, government transfers Rs 400,000 after verification of invoice, registration and bank details (per the official portal). The kWh figures are arithmetic from the 72V platform (72V x 90Ah = 6.48 kWh; 72V x 125Ah = 9.0 kWh), matching Sazgar's own eVe spec page.

Specifications

Sazgar publishes full specs only for the eVe - the passenger rickshaw the Deluxe EV productionizes - so this table is the closest official picture of the platform:

A third 160Ah / 11.5 kWh / 210 km variant appears on the eVe spec page but is in no priced channel we could find. Sazgar describes the chemistry only as lithium-ion ("the same batteries used in electric cars"); third-party scheme coverage says LiFePO4 - the subtype is unconfirmed by Sazgar. Motor ratings for the Shuttle EV and Tempo Electric Loader are not published by Sazgar at all.

Honest assessment

Pros. This is the only e-rickshaw in Pakistan from a listed company with audited accounts, a real factory, and the country's first EV rickshaw manufacturing license (Punjab, 9 January 2024). The lithium-only battery policy is a genuine differentiator: the failure mode that defines the cheap e-rickshaw market - a lead-acid pack dying every 12-15 months - is designed out. Parts and service ride on Sazgar's existing three-wheeler dealer network, the largest in the country, and the company has been iterating this vehicle since a 2015 prototype, not rebadging an import. With the Rs 400,000 PAVE subsidy, the effective Rs 700,000-930,000 price lands within sight of what a working rickshaw actually earns.

Cons. At sticker, Rs 1.1-1.33 million is two to three times the street price of the petrol rickshaws Sazgar itself dominates the market with - without the subsidy, the math is hard. Availability is the bigger problem: there is no visible retail channel. Sazgar's website prices nothing, no marketplace listings exist, and the PAVE route runs through e-balloting against a national allocation of just 3,170 three-wheelers. Specs are thinly documented - no motor rating for the Shuttle or Tempo, no payload figure for the loader, no official warranty page, no confirmed battery chemistry subtype. And the range figures are Sazgar's own approximations, not independently tested numbers.

Who should buy. A commercial operator or fleet buyer who can get a PAVE allocation (or wait for one) and wants the only e-rickshaw with a listed-company warranty path behind it. A buyer who needs a vehicle this week, or whose budget is genuinely Rs 450-650k, is - honestly - not in Sazgar's market: that money buys the no-name lead-acid segment, with all its battery-replacement economics.

Pakistan reality check

The Rs 450-650k myth. Price blogs - and until today, our own guide - quote "Sazgar electric rickshaw Rs 450,000-650,000" with invented model names like "E-Auto Passenger." We opened every such page we could find on 2 August 2026: none shows a live Sazgar listing at those numbers, and the official portal contradicts them by roughly 2x. When a quoted Sazgar EV price starts with a 4, 5 or 6, you are reading recycled SEO filler for the generic e-rickshaw segment.

How you actually buy one. The PAVE program is the visible channel: register at pave.gov.pk, enter e-balloting (ages 21-65, valid license, clean bank history; fleet operators may apply under defined limits). Two paths: (1) self-finance - pay order to Sazgar for the full price, vehicle within 60 days, Rs 400,000 subsidy transferred to your bank after verification; (2) bank lease - Rs 200,000 upfront subsidy plus an interest-free Rs 880,000 loan paid to the OEM, repaid in installments through partner banks. Note the two paths carry different subsidy amounts on the portal itself.

Cost per km - the number that sells EVs to rickshaw operators. Arithmetic, with assumptions stated: a 9 kWh charge delivering Sazgar's claimed 160 km is ~0.056 kWh/km - call it Rs 3.5-4/km at a Rs 60/kWh grid tariff, or near zero from rooftop solar. A 4-stroke petrol rickshaw at ~30 km/L and ~Rs 270/L is ~Rs 9/km. At 80 km/day of commercial running, the gap is roughly Rs 400-450/day - Rs 10,500-13,500 a month depending on days run - before the oil changes and tune-ups the EV also skips. These are our derivations, not Sazgar claims - range drops with load, heat and battery age.

Lead-acid swap culture vs lithium. Most cheap e-rickshaws run 4-5 lead-acid batteries that die within 12-15 months of daily charging in Pakistani heat; the market's answer is a swap-and-scrap cycle that quietly adds Rs 7,000-8,000 per month of amortized battery cost. Sazgar's own account: it built a lead-acid prototype in 2015, judged the batteries "not durable... doomed to fail," and refused to sell one. The lithium premium is real money up front - the whole commercial case rests on the pack outliving the loan. Which makes the warranty gap notable: no official Sazgar warranty terms are published; get battery years/km on paper before paying.

Grey and no-name reality. The e-rickshaw market's volume is assembled-in-a-shed vehicles with no license, no type approval, and no brand to claim against - often sold on the same listing pages that misquote Sazgar prices. Sazgar and a short list of licensed makers (Nova, Tezmo, Pak Star on the PAVE list) are the exception, not the rule. If a quote seems half of everyone else's, you are buying the segment, not a discount.

Price context vs rivals (August 2026)

Same official list, same day - the PAVE three-wheeler tab on 2 August 2026:

Sazgar brackets the top of the official list - a Rs 300,000 premium over the cheapest listed rickshaw - and holds six of the ten slots. Against Nova the picture is mixed: the 90Ah Deluxe and Shuttle actually undercut Nova's EcoDost rickshaw by Rs 16,000-76,000, while the 125Ah Deluxe costs Rs 94,000 more and the Tempo loaders run Rs 140,000-270,000 above Nova's ECV350. (A scheme price list at pavegovpk.com shows slightly different figures for two rivals - Tez Raftar Rs 866,000, Ricky Rs 1,040,000 - while matching every Sazgar number; we print the official portal's figures.) What the premium buys is the license-first history, the dealer network, and the only balance sheet in the segment you can actually read.

Model pages: Deluxe EV passenger rickshaw and Tempo Electric Loader.