After years of animal rights activists pushing for an end to horse-drawn carriages, Brussels has finally given them their first big win.
The Belgian capital recently replaced its horse-drawn carriage business with electric alternatives—providing a potential model that other cities around the world could follow.
“I’m very proud to be one of the first capital cities in the world that moved totally from horses to electricity,” says Thibault Danthine, a carriage operator who helped lead the city’s transition to electric carriages. “I wanted to change and I did it.”
The new electric venture in Brussels started with a pitch from Danthine in 2023. He had been the city’s primary horse carriage operator but wanted to make the shift to electricity. Collaborating with local officials, he helped design a new type of carriage inspired by Robert Anderson, who made one of the first electric carriages in 1832.
Previously, Danthine had five horses in operation. Now he has two e-carriages out on the streets of Brussels, with a third coming in 2025. The new vehicles charge “like an electric car,” per Danthine, and are plugged in overnight. He declined to comment on their price.
Danthine insists that the change wasn’t due to his own animal welfare concerns. Rather, the cost and patrons’ questions over animal labor were making the horse carriages unsustainable.
“I was very proud to have healthy and happy horses,” Danthine says. “It’s more the fact that today, you see that with the zoo, it’s less and less accepted by the people to see animals working.”
The electric swap has its own set of benefits, including the fact that the vehicles can travel up to 75 miles per charge, allowing for tourists to take in a breadth of sites. The e-carriage design also jibes with Brussel’s old architecture; electric carriages, Danthine reminds, were the earliest predecessor to modern cars.
“The reactions are very positive,” Danthine says of the tourist response. “They are surprised to see that carriage in the main square, because you don’t see that everywhere. But they’re very happy at the end of the tour.”
A memo to American cities
Other cities in Europe, including Prague and Barcelona, have moved to ban horse carriages, while efforts in the U.S. have been slower. Chicago and Salt Lake City were able to effectively shut down the use of carriage horses, while a bill remains pending in Dallas. None of these cities have made significant advances toward an electric alternative. In New York City, former Mayor Bill de Blasio planned to ban the practice “on day one.” That never happened, despite a 2022 viral video of a carriage horse collapsing in midtown Manhattan. Since then, legislation has stalled.
Edita Birnkrant is a leading activist in New York’s anti-carriage horse movement, serving as executive director of NYCLASS (New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets). When Brussels officially made its switch, she felt mixed emotions.
“I applaud all of these cities around the world that are doing the right thing,” Birnkrant says. “They’re on the right side of history here. It makes me devastated and angry that we have not done it yet in New York City.”
While electric alternatives were long a piece of the New York movement, Birnkrant and her fellow activists have since excised them from the docket, focusing solely on an all-out ban of horse-drawn carriages. Birnkrant describes the conditions carriage horses work under, crashing into vehicles, facing health challenges, and being forced to live in stables she compares to “dungeons.”
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Janet White’s FREe-Carriages operates one electric vehicle. (The city never outright banned horse-drawn carriages, though its only provider, 76 Carriage Co., suspended operations in 2023.) White says she plans to deploy a fleet of horseless alternatives within the next few years.
“We’ve already observed in our first year that people absolutely love this,” White says. “There’s much more demand than supply.”
In Charleston, Kyle Kelly operates the eCarriage Motor Co., though the city has yet to grant his request for permits. Still, he’s hopeful that he can be “the Henry Ford of this industry,” noting that other cities like New Orleans have expressed interest in operating an electric carriage like his.
“There’s economic opportunity that no one else is taking advantage of,” Kelly says. “[I’m doing] a phase-in approach to offer alternatives for everyone who doesn’t want a horse carriage for their own personal beliefs and reasons.”
Birnkrant stresses that electric carriages are not a downgrade. Like the model Danthine introduced in Brussels, an electric alternative could offer a new frontier: “When you can transition an outdated business like horse carriages that has cruelty and safety issues and transform it into a cruelty-free, safer business, that’s a win-win for everyone.”