Although I mostly describe electric two-wheelers and other non-car electric vehicles, I’m still quite a pro at electric cars. The problem is that while they are more environmentally friendly than gasoline cars, those 4,000 pound tanks all seem like a lot more vehicle than I need for my typical urban lifestyle. Or at least until I find this little gem of an EV! It is perhaps the smallest four-wheel electric car in the world, if you can call it that.
What you can definitely call it is the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week.
I might be tossing around the term “car” a bit loosely here.
This tiny electric vehicle has four wheels and two doors, but that’s about it.
In fact, I think this rolling phone booth is about 90% door.
I’ve seen tiny electric cars before, but this one takes the cake for a pint size. It’s like someone pulled a box around a person, added wheels, and said, “That’s all it takes to move exactly one and a half people around a grocery bag effectively.”
I’ve seen HotWheels cars that could keep up with this little buggy in terms of wheelbase, even if they could never match its Alibaba charm.
And it’s not just short. The little car is so narrow that the side mirrors practically touch each other.
But what the 230 kg (507 lb) small electric speedster lacks in size it makes up for in … well, not much. The specs are pretty muted too.
Its delightful 1,000 W motor (1.3 hp) brings our little team up to a rapid 40 km / h (25 mph). The designers have to be pretty optimistic about the performance in this little engine, considering they added a rear wheelie bar to the car. I’m not sure if the rear-wheel drive will be enough to get your nose up, but then a moderate gust of wind might be enough.
At least we know that thanks to a fairly large 60 V and 32 Ah battery with a capacity of 1,920 Wh, the thing can run all day. Sure, we’ve seen more battery-powered electric bikes, but nothing about our little single-seat minivan is excessive. This humble lead-acid battery has a range of 60 km (37 miles). That’s an hour and a half at full speed, and believe me when I say you probably don’t want to spend more than 90 minutes at a time doing this thing.
The seat looks very comfortable, don’t get me wrong. In fact, it has a nicer seat than many of the other questionable Alibaba electric cars we’ve seen. But there’s something about driving around in a car that’s taller than it is wide (or long) that is likely to get a bit claustrophobic.
Somehow the seller even claims that the car seats are two, but that has to be by counting the driver’s lap as a spare seat.
It’s easy to laugh at such a small car, but then again, I actually see some benefit from it. It’s basically the smallest neighborhood electric vehicle (NEV) you’ve ever seen. Who needs a 6-seater GEM when you’re headed to the clubhouse at your local condominium for the shuffleboard semifinals? If you only need one set of wheels and you have plenty of time to leave early, this little electric car could do that for you.
I wish I could report that the price is “more than fair” or “reasonable for what you get,” but I didn’t get a real price offer out of the company.
As soon as I said I am not interested in a container load of these Pygmy Teslas, they stop chatting to me. So the price stays somewhere in the $ 100 to $ 4,000 range as stated on the sales page.
For $ 100 a pop, I’ll sign up for a dozen. I’m going to get one of those two meter long inflatable beach balls and start a small car soccer league.
But at $ 4,000, I’ll probably fold. I’ve already spent almost as much on an electric pickup truck that I spotted on Alibaba, and I’m almost finished with experimental electric purchases right now.
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop you from grabbing one of those geriatric hot rod electric racers. Just don’t expect a super smooth sales experience.
While I always advise against buying one of those Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicles that I feature every week, that doesn’t mean people always listen to me. Others have bought these strange finds and the process may be hit or miss. Communication is key and helps avoid misunderstandings between buyers and sellers on the world’s largest trading platform.
But if you’re not brave (or stupid) enough to spend your hard-earned cash on a mysterious half-world EV, that’s more than fine. Please allow fools like me to curate China’s weirdest electric cars in a weekly column and even sometimes put my money in the corner of my mouth trying to order these fun little things.
If you happen to find your own awesome or weird electric vehicle while window shopping on Alibaba, please feel free to give me a tip! You can find my contact details in my author biography below. If you find something neat enough, it might be included in a future column!
And until next time, check out some of these other fun finds from the past few weeks:
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