On the other hand, I take one look at this mostly-prefabricated building and I'm like "...I could use one of those." https://www.mcmaster.com/6704T998/
When a factory is a couple km long in either direction and a machine breaks the mechanics need to get their tool boxes there fast and safe. While street truck could be used (and often they are), a because of people walking around the top speed is no higher, and the trike is more maneuverable and so overall is faster than a truck.
Looks like they would be very useful on large industrial site with multiple buildings. Provide staff with bikes to get around, and cargo tricycles if they need to move small to medium loads.
It has come up when we've played the "McMaster Game" at our office, in which we attempt to guess random things that McMaster might or might not have.
Interesting things they have had in the past include basketball hoops (in a kit, ready to go, for all your "our institution needs a basketball court... today" needs) and a urinal.
But yes, there are real uses for industrial tricycles -- need to move some stuff (or a person) pretty far pretty quickly inside a warehouse? Industrial tricycle.
We use these in military aviation across the world. Stupidly useful when you’ve got 100+ lbs of tools to run out to a down aircraft that needs fixed to make a mission.
I can't talk about details but I know of large industry-leading aerospace manufacturers who don't use MMC for flight parts because they need batch-level part tracking for failure investigations, and MMC doesn't offer that.
The best tool for moving a person and up to about 300kg of stuff at 2-20km/h over nice surfaces.
Never need to charge/fuel it. A coaster brake model out of the weather can go years without any maintenance. Will work for decades with $50 worth of parts. Some models fit anywhere wheelchair accessible. Cheap enough that you don't need keys. Stores anywhere.
In an industrial setting they are extremely useful.
There is! IIRC, the first item McM ever sold through its website was an industrial tricycle (I think it was to an engineer at CERN, which has very long tunnels).
They don't have European operations so I'd imagine it's probably an accelerator in the US like Fermilab or SLAC, but otherwise that would make perfect sense.
It may be hard to find but there is a very good episode of 99% Invisible (are there bad ones?) that goes in depth on industrial tricycles. Only thing I can say to help you find it is that I think it was a 2015 episode, sorry.
Basically they are used to transport parts around large warehouses or factories.
