THIS would make a catchy book title. I suspect the answer to the question is yes.

The word "Merkavah" ("Chariot") does not appear in the vision in Ezekiel chapter 1, but it was applied to it very early on (Ben Sira, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, etc.). Interestingly, another feature of the heavenly realm in that chapter, the "Hashmal" (translated in the RSV as "gleaming bronze" in Ezek 1:27), also becomes important in the Merkavah/Hekhalot traditions as a dangerous element faced by the Merkavah mystics in their adventures. There is, for example, this anecdote from the Babylonian Talmud, Hagigah 13a:

The rabbis taught: It happened once that a certain child, who was reading in his teacher's house in the Book of Ezekiel, was pondering over 'Hashmal, and there came out fire from 'Hashmal and burnt him, and they sought in consequence to conceal the Book of Ezekiel.

In modern Israeli Hebrew "hashmal" has become the word for "electricity."