Pushpak Tours – Powered by Vishnu, Inspired by Sonoma

Electric Trikes are Popular for Vineyard Tours

By David Bolling

Unless you’re a practicing Hindu, the name that Howard Sapper bestowed on his electric, Wine Country tour vehicles is a bit of a stretch.

He calls the company Pushpak Motors, after the flower-bedecked flying vehicle variously associated with the Hindu deities Vishnu, Rama and others. You can read about it in the Ramayana, an epic story about the balance between good and evil. Or you can ask Howard how he picked the name.

But the Ramayana won’t tell you much about Pushpak Motors, conveniently tucked into the courtyard shops, across from the Sonoma Plaza at 414 First Street East, next to the Bedrock Winery tasting room. For that you need Howard, a devotee of inner peace, nature-sensitive enterprise, and multiple entrepreneurial adventures. He’s a former record company executive, founding member of Earth Communications Office and founder of Everybody Is A Star, a nonprofit supporting special needs young adults through music video and the arts. He’s also on the Sonoma County Human Rights Commission. Howard has a heavy plate.

He fell into Pushpak when a friend’s business plans collapsed leaving him in possession of a dozen three-wheeled electric carts just as Covid arrived. What to do? Howard decided to mix up a brew of electric lemonade.

The electric tricycles were made in China but arrived in parts, and as Howard began assembling them he realized they offered a perfect, very green solution for urban transport in a compact, low-speed community like Sonoma. Battery-powered, with 50-mile range and a top speed of 25 miles-per-hour, they didn’t require licensing, registration or insurance. They could be charged from any home power outlet, carried up to three people, and were street legal. What a perfect, CO2-free way to get around Sonoma without worrying about finding a parking place.

So before long, Howard was selling the Pushpak tricycles, with several different models ranging in price from $3,695 to the enclosed Pushpak 7000, selling for $7,495. Various custom configurations can be assembled as well.

But renting and selling didn’t scratch Howard’s entrepreneurial itch deep enough and he suddenly realized he had almost everything he needed to create a new Wine Country tourist attraction. Take people on tours of Sonoma Valley’s world-class vineyards, historic landmarks, tasting rooms and country estates.

So Howard went all in, with some investment help he acquired more tricycles, mapped out a variety of tours – some lasting up to five hours – partnered with wineries and vineyards, hired some staff and seems to have tutored all of them with every conceivable bit of interesting Sonoma Valley history. Howard himself can rattle off dates, names, places and historical trivia with the best of them. Now, four years in, he’s exposed some 8,000 visitors from all over the country and the world, to the low-speed, close-to-the ground experience of navigating narrow Wine Country lanes, touring the area’s historic touch stones – the Vallejo home, the Mission, iconic wineries, famous artisans like Vella Cheese Company, the mansions and sprawling estates. He even has permission from at least one vineyard owner to pick the post-harvest leavings in a chardonnay and pinot vineyard. That experience was enough to thrill a couple from Massachusetts who had never been here before.

The touring tricycles are governed to a top speed of 18 miles per hour, a perfect speed for absorbing Sonoma ambiance. There are two different tours – lasting two hours or five hours – and Howard packs them full of low-key, laid-back adventure. Each tour includes tasting room stops, for which Howard provides charcuterie plates, but customers pay for their wine.

Howard has now branched out into specialty tours, like “Trike and Hike,” which involves driving the trikes to hiking trails for a more rugged experience of the Valley, and a three-hour Trike and Mindfullness tour, which includes a stop at Sonoma Ashram for a tour through the gardens and a meditation in the ashram temple. Also on the agenda is a new Sunset tour, with late evening visits at vineyard vistas to watch the sun going down, followed by a winetasting on the Plaza.

Customers seem to be virtually unanimous in their praise for the experience, with both Tripadvisor and Yelp registering endless five-star reviews. And in 2022, says Howard, Pushpak was recognized by the mammoth travel aggregator Viator as one of the ten best Beverage Tours and Experiences in North America.

All would be well with Pushpak were it not for a break-in at the company’s warehouse where numerous trikes were stolen. Because the insurance company did what insurance companies often do – delayed and delayed covering the stolen value – the crime turned into a hevy hit for Howard. So, partly for that reason,  he confides reluctantly, he is looking for new investors interested in helping sustain Sonoma’s most sustainable and fun motorized transportation system. If you’re interested, take a tour and talk to Howard. The address is www.pushpakmotors.net.