16 ms·

I bought a cheap electric pickup truck from Alibaba (2021)

480 points by qzervaas 4y ago

boboche 4y ago
If those were imported massively in usa or canada [and take a chunk off the 2k shipping and other extra fees that could be averaged down], they would sell tons even if not street legal, awesome base for hacking or small vehicle for small farms or woodlands.
HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
Honestly, I think $7,000 delivered for this is a pretty good price. It would make a nice farm vehicle, especially with that dump bed. It's in the same price range as a lower end UTV and looks like it would be far more comfortable doing, e.g., snow clearing duty. Swap in a set of BFG Mud Terrain tires and you're all set. Some feedback on reliability, the rust issues, etc. would be nice but I'd seriously think about getting one. As for it not being street legal, well I live out in the country. Golf carts, UTV's, ATV's, minibikes, on the roads around here are not at all unusual. Not legal, but I only know of one case of someone getting ticketed.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  https://insideevs.com/news/502536/wuling-hongguang-mini-ev-cabrio/ https://insideevs.com/news/502536/wuling-hongguang-mini-ev-c... That's the actual car I think I want most in the world. It's so cheap and fun, and possibly even practical for me, but I don't think there's any way I could drive it in my city sadly.
  - glogla 4y ago
    Yeah, the "larger cars are safer for people inside the car but more likely to kill people outside the car" red queen race made roads even more terrible. In car like that, you would get ran over by a lifted truck or mama-SUV pretty quickly.
    - beebeepka 4y ago
      If things continue this way, our current end game is tanks with machine guns and stuff. I feel safer already.
  - jfim 4y ago
    Haha wow, that's such an adorable car. It's unfortunate that that kind of vehicle won't ever make it to the US though.
    - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
      The closest thing was probably the electric Smart car that Mercedes makes: https://carbuzz.com/cars/smart/fortwo-electric-drive-cabrio https://carbuzz.com/cars/smart/fortwo-electric-drive-cabrio They don’t sell them in the US anymore.
      - jfim 4y ago
        Oh wow, I didn't even know they made an electric smart, much less a convertible one. Not sure how good the EV part of that was (the article hints that it was terrible) but the form factor is really nice.
      - happymellon 4y ago
        Is the Honda-e available over there? That's a pretty nice mini electric vehicle.
        WorldMaker 4y ago
        The Honda-e is not available at all in the US. The top line excuse is that side-view cameras are still not street legal in the US (though regulators are supposed to finally reconvene on that any day now) and the car's profile can't retrofit mirrors. But the current bottom line seems a disinterest from Honda of America in any EV products right now.
        robin_reala 4y ago
        It’s really not that small in real life.
        happymellon 4y ago
        I'm in the UK and seen them about. They aren't very large, about the size of a Fiat 500 which is considered quite a compact car. [Edit] I've just looked it up and it is considered a mid-sized super-compact. Within 1/2" of the Fiesta for the wheelbase. Its quite dinky.
  - beebeepka 4y ago
    I would actually get a driving license for a car like this. Why wouldn't you be able to drive it in your city. Doesn't look smaller than a smart.
    - hotpotamus 4y ago
      In the US you'd have to buy a bunch and put them through destructive crash tests to certify them, and I doubt these would pass - those smart cars actually have expensive high end steel structures built in that make them surprisingly resilient, and I doubt they do that in China. If they had 3 wheels you could skip a lot of that and count it as a motorcycle. Also, anything older than 25 years basically just bypasses the rules which means a lot of 90's Kei cars from Japan are starting to make their way in, but obviously those are combustion powered (still cool though). There is the concept of Neighborhood Electric Vehicle, but I don't believe they are allowed in my state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle Who knows, maybe there's a business opportunity to import these things and certify them - I'd be a buyer.
      - lovemenot 4y ago
        Speaking of Kei cars, the first two EVs that fall into the Kei car regulatory category were recently released in Japan. https://www.motor1.com/news/587022/nissan-sakura-electric-kei-car/ https://www.motor1.com/news/587022/nissan-sakura-electric-ke... https://www.mitsubishi-motors.co.jp/lineup/ek_x_ev/special/?intcid2=top_mainbnr_slide1 https://www.mitsubishi-motors.co.jp/lineup/ek_x_ev/special/?...
      - 7speter 4y ago
        The “destructive crash tests” are required so that you have a fighting chance in surviving a crash with a SUV
        hotpotamus 4y ago
        I understand that, but how would I do in crash with an SUV if I were on a motorcycle and are those street legal?
  - intrepidhero 4y ago
    https://www.arcimoto.com/ https://www.arcimoto.com/ Not nearly as cheap, but street legal in the US and looks like loads of fun.
  - prmoustache 4y ago
    I don't understand why anyone would choose that over a motorbike.
  - jaclaz 4y ago
    I don't think it will ever arrive in the US, but the Citroen AMI is a nice little thing that is having some success in some EU countries: https://www.citroen.co.uk/models/future-models/ami.html https://www.citroen.co.uk/models/future-models/ami.html Though personally (if it will ever be produced in mass) I like this "re-make" of the old Isetta, the microlino: https://microlino-car.com/en/microlino https://microlino-car.com/en/microlino
- hedora 4y ago
  Yeah; very, very tempting. It makes me wonder if there are specialty shops in the US that can cut down on the $2000-$3000 delivery charge.
- Arrath 4y ago
  Yeah I have to agree. This seems a lot more suited to most of my uses than a more expensive Polaris UTV. With an enclosed and climate controlled cab!
- motohagiography 4y ago
  These could be competitive with a Kioti for golf courses, fairgrounds, and horse farms. If they there were a utv track kit option, doubly so in places with winters.
- olyjohn 4y ago
  Jason Torchinsky from The Autopian imported a ChangLi a couple of years ago. He has posted regular updates since he got it (his old posts are still up at Jalopnik). I don't know how it compares to this one exactly, but there were a few posts showing some sketchy wiring, and some wires that nearly caught on fire. But it should give you some idea how it's been working.
  - sjs382 4y ago
    First thing I thought of when I saw this story. Heres a link to one of the posts: https://jalopnik.com/the-worlds-cheapest-ev-is-genuinely-good-1847048450 https://jalopnik.com/the-worlds-cheapest-ev-is-genuinely-goo...
- enragedcacti 4y ago
  It really isn't too bad if you have the right use case. You could get a Kei truck which makes a lot more power and you can register, but you'll be paying a good bit more ($9k for a 1990 with a dump bed near me) and you'll have the fun of maintaining a 30 year old JDM vehicle.
  - bitexploder 4y ago
    You can get them at 20 years old. Some states will not let you register them, like my home state, Colorado. Sad times, they are pretty practical.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  $7k gets you a really nice compact pickup, not anything the average HNer would buy, but nice enough for farm duty and new enough to not need anything for years. And you can drive it down the street. And when you snap something doing farmer stuff (which you will, because farmer) you can go buy a replacement part easily.
  - Gustomaximus 4y ago
    As someone that lives on a farm, I was thinking the same, you're getting a reasonable second hand ute "paddock basher" at that price. At the same time I love seeing this and where its going. I always think of Luke on his uncles farm in star wars and that farm work will increasing change more to fixing the machines doing the job, than the job itself. And I suspect ongoing electric powered will suit farmers more than anyone as they have the space and lack of neighbours to create power themselves.
- ldoughty 4y ago
  I really want to agree -- I really want a truck like this in the USA, but unfortunately I need to disagree simply because it is not street legal. I have an old 2001 beater truck I use for the purpose now, but I can't replace it with this EV because it's not street legal. I live in a rural area, but luckily I can drive 2 miles to a dump (transfer station) and 5 miles to a place with bulk mulch, soil, gravel, etc... But I can't possibly get to either without going on state roads... And I can't drop my gas truck and replace it with an EV for $7k if it would not be legally usable. I can't see many farms that could use this. For the same reason -- I certainly don't want to use my truck to get serval buckets of mulch, just to shovel it into the EV, then to shovel it out at the final destination. If the gov lets me slap "farm use" tags on this, and that's all is needed... Okay, I'm interested.. but I think there's usually more requirements
  - splistud 4y ago
  - R0b0t1 4y ago
    If you assemble it from a kit it becomes legal. No parts requirements iirc, specific cutout for homebuilt machines.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - MarcelOlsz 4y ago
    Just hitch it and use it that way. Worst case scenario you pay a little more for gas. Problem solved.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      Isn't the entire point to not be using any gas? You want to use a gas powered ICE truck to tow the EV to load contents into the EV's bed, then tow the EV back to where ever just to avoid transferring content from ICE->EV->application?
  - asdff 4y ago
- slg 4y ago
  >Golf carts, UTV's, ATV's, minibikes, on the roads around here are not at all unusual. Not legal, but I only know of one case of someone getting ticketed. Although I do wonder if all the conveniences that makes this more carlike combined with its uniqueness in the US would make it more likely to receive legal pushback. Something that clearly isn't even attempting to be a street legal vehicle like a golf cart is easier to excuse. A cop who sees this might be more suspicious of the vehicle and how you actually use it.
- splistud 4y ago
- ghaff 4y ago
  My neighbor with about 35 acres has a golf cart she drives around. Probably wouldn't need this as she also has a tractor and a pickup but can easily imagine something like this for a large property. Another neighbor has an ATV he uses for snow plowing his long driveway. You need to keep on top of things relative to plowing with a pickup but he seems to manage. But yeah. If you're going to have farm vehicles are probably better and more standard options.
- m463 4y ago
  I would love to love it, but I don't know how it holds up against a used pickup truck, say a used small toyota pickup or an older f-150.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    You don't have to deal with getting fuel for it. Sure the used truck can drive to a gas station (instead of gas cans), but it is still a hassle. Large farms will have fuel tanks behind the barn so they can drive a tractor over to fill it, but most people don't go through enough fuel to make that worth it. This you just plug in when you are done and it is always ready to go. If you use this all day it probably won't work, but most small property owners would use it for an hour or two (over the course of an entire day), and so it always has plenty of range. I don't see why they sell gas lawn mowers at WalMart (do they still?) as for home owners electric now makes more sense than dealing with gas. Sure the big lawn mowing companies use their mowers more in a day than the battery will last, but the small home owner doesn't.
- fsckboy 4y ago
  > the rust issues rust issues on cars are actually caused by water pooling in inside cavities and rusting its way out over time because they don't dry out. water on the outside of a piece of metal isn't really that serious a threat for rusting its way in (you see lots of cars driven for years with unrepaired body damage and they don't rust away) I don't imagine the rust he saw was bubbling up through the paint from inside, I doubt it's a problem
- chemmail 4y ago
  I'm not sure if thats really a good deal. You can find some Leafs with new bats for like $3000-4000 all over. And thats road legal anywhere. Maybe chop the top and you got a pickup.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
    Can I throw a set of All Terrains on a Leaf? Also, ground clearance would probably be an issue.
- fnands 4y ago
  My worry would be maintenance. Yeah sure, you can get it for cheap, but will it take 6 months every time you need a replacement part?
  - the_biot 4y ago
    Possibly, but then 1) it won't require much in the way of maintenance or replacement parts, being a really low end EV, and 2) I suspect everything but the chassis is bog standard stuff you can get anywhere. This isn't going to be like a car with its hundreds (thousands?) of molded ABS parts everywhere.
OrangeMonkey 4y ago
Impressive. At this price point they had to cut some features. I wonder if one of those features is "Safety" and another one is "The front won't fall off".
- TheRealPomax 4y ago
  Safety at a blistering speed of checks article 25 mph? Who in their right mind would design for safety if the thing can't even outpace a professional cyclist?
  - Jiejeing 4y ago
    25mph is plenty fast for a car accident.
    - TheRealPomax 4y ago
      Or a bike accident. Yeah it's going to hurt, you might even break some things, but for it to be any more than that would be the definition of a freak accident.
  - acdha 4y ago
    25mph is where lethality starts to go up, but that doesn’t mean things going 24mph harmlessly bounce off of pedestrians (good news, you’re not dead. Bad news, you can’t work for long enough to go bankrupt). This still weighs a lot more than a cyclist does and it’s reasonable to say that there should be a safety bar to reduce serious injuries even if that’s a lot lower than a vehicle which can go 100mph.
  - witheld 4y ago
    That’s not professional level I’d say most cyclists can sprint at 25+
    - TheRealPomax 4y ago
      But only briefly, because they'd have to sprint, so I'm ignoring that part.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> glass has to come from DOT-registered glass factories, the backup camera has to come from DOT-registered backup camera factories, etc. It’s not enough to simply go 25 mph and have seat belts and blinkers... Even if the cars had all the necessary DOT parts, the factory that produces them in China also has to be registered with the NHTSA to allow the cars to be street legal in the US. Some of this makes sense. Much of it doesn't, or could be vastly simplified for low-speed use cases.
- exar0815 4y ago
  Well, obviously everything makes sense! Atleast when knowing the reason for that is simply very successful lobbying by established companies to prevent anyone from entering any vehicle or vehicle supplying market without enormous upfront costs .
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    Imagine hitting a pedestrian at 4mph on the side of the road with one of your headlights. The headlight shatters. However, the light turned out to not actually be safety glass and not shatter in harmless cubes but in nasty long splinters that hit an artery and the pedestrian bleeds out on the side of the road. The Chinese company won't give a shit because they have no certification so nothing to lose. They didn't even export it to you, some random AliExpress seller did. So you end up in jail for it. This kind of learning from previous mistakes informed the complex legislation around vehicles. Most of these things have good reason, not just lobbying. Manufacturers love cutting costs and you need a big stick to keep them honest. Remember the Ford Pinto? The Boeing 737MAX? Or what Volkswagen did to trick emissions tests? In fact I'd be surprised if the factories welcome all the paperwork that comes with it. In the end it's not to protect the industry, it's to protect the people (not just you but other road users as well) from an "all too eager to cut corners" industry. And random Chinese factories love cutting corners even more and there's virtually no risk to them. The only way to be sure is to have the whole chain certified.
    - Gordonjcp 4y ago
bobsmooth 4y ago
What a cute little truck. It's crazy the stuff you can import from China.
Glyptodon 4y ago
I'm confused by street legal thing. How do people register cars they make themselves if there are all these requirements?
- brianwawok 4y ago
  You are paying for a 1 off inspection. If you go buy a Honda Civic you can skip the inspection, because it follows the street legal requirements.
- kgilpin 4y ago
  If you build it yourself then some /many of the regulations don’t apply. For example you don’t need airbags (in Massachusetts). It varies by state: https://www.semasan.com/resources/everything-you-need-register-and-title-your-hobby-car-all-50-states https://www.semasan.com/resources/everything-you-need-regist... Roughly the same thing is true for airplanes - experimental (“home built”) have to be airworthy but not certificated. They say it’s due to long tradition of DIY vehicles in America.
- bri3d 4y ago
  Self-built cars are usually a completely different process, and also don't involve import. But, the author of the article also massively overstates the requirements for a legal vehicle under the Low Speed Vehicle rules. The full FMVSS rules are gargantuan, complex, and hard to meet, but the LSV rules really aren't. They basically need to not go 25mph, meet dimension and weight requirements, and have lights, reflectors, seat belts, and an approved windshield. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/571.500 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/571.500 The manufacturer then self-attests that the vehicle meets FMVSS, and submits paperwork documenting their VIN format. Unless there are complaints or an investigation, that's pretty much it.
- tantalor 4y ago
  Generally they aren't. Here's an example: > Factory Five products are expressly sold for custom car-building, racing and off-road use and are not intended to be used in conventional passenger or other legal highway applications. https://www.factoryfive.com/terms-conditions https://www.factoryfive.com/terms-conditions
WebbWeaver 4y ago
It does not look like it would outperform UTVs at similar or lower price points.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  What air conditioned UTV is available for $7000?
  - WebbWeaver 4y ago
    That's a fine point. You can buy one separately for ~1-5k. I kinda wish there could be a solar panel mount so nobody would accidentally run over it with a truck.
    - TheRealPomax 4y ago
      Also, what UTV even comes with a dump bed?
      - happyopossum 4y ago
        Can-Am defender, AC Prowler, Honda Pioneer, any number of John Deere UTVs, etc. Pretty much every line of farm-focused UTV has a dump bed option... I'm guessing when you hear UTV you're thinking of the 60MPH off-road blitzing side by sides that are so popular at the dunes these days, but that's only part of the market for these.
        TheRealPomax 4y ago
        Sure, but we were talking about this being an excellent choice given what it offers at its operational price tag of $7000, having conveniences no UTV has in that bracket. All of the ones you listed are fine UTVs, but they also cost literally twice as much =)
        pedrocr 4y ago
        Once you limit to EV the choices are pretty limited though. Toro and Deere have decent options and all the others at most have a retrofitted electric motor to a transmission designed for gas/diesel. Hopefully the ramp up of LFP battery production revamps this market quite a bit.
pedrocr 4y ago
We have a Toro Workman electric cart on our small farm. It's extremely useful even while being quite basic and powered by lead-acid batteries. We bought it used a while ago but a new one would cost 15k€. The new ones are a little nicer but still mostly unchanged over the years. John Deere sells a Gator that's almost the same thing. I'm definitely hoping some of these manufacturers shake up this market. Hopefully the small tractor and skid steer markets as well although that's quite a bit more complex because of managing the attachments. Battery weight is irrelevant and so is range for most people, so lead-acid is fine for all these applications. LFP can be a bonus though. A few things have started popping up but nothing really good. A lot of the time it's people attaching an electric motor to an overly complicated transmission designed for the shortcomings of gas/diesel motors.
hallway_monitor 4y ago
Pretty much what you'd expect. I'm impressed. Also, the guy made more than his money back from youtube revenue
haunter 4y ago
>the backup camera has to come from DOT-registered backup camera factories Does that mean you can't have a street legal car in the US without a backup camera? Or if it does have a backup camera it has to come from a DOT-registered factory? If the latter then why not just disable it? Or that's not even enough?
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  Yes, I believe new cars need to have backup cameras in the us and Europe. Old cars are grandfathered.
- Arrath 4y ago
  Yes backup cameras are mandated for new vehicles now. The regulation was put into place starting MY 2020.
- bri3d 4y ago
  The author of this article does not understand FMVSS or DOT regulations. 1) Yes, this is true, for several years the FMVSS has required backup cameras for full speed cars. However, this isn't true for low speed vehicles. 2) This just isn't true at all. FMVSS do not require factories to be certified in any specific way. https://www.rearviewsafety.com/pub/static/version1558698936/frontend/rearviewsafety/theme/en_US/images/FMVSS-111-Full-Compliance.pdf https://www.rearviewsafety.com/pub/static/version1558698936/... These are the requirements. Manufacturers self-attest that they comply. The NHTSA reserves the right to respond to complaints or independently inspect their vehicles. They don't inspect or register "factories."
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- glxxyz 4y ago
  Every new vehicle has to have a backup camera.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
sharadov 4y ago
It's outrageous! Love it, what fun!
zdw 4y ago
There's a sequel article that goes over how well it's held up: https://electrek.co/2022/07/25/electric-mini-truck-how-its-holding-up/ https://electrek.co/2022/07/25/electric-mini-truck-how-its-h...
fuzzythinker 4y ago
Hmm, wonder why the 1 year ago post is posted instead of the new one today that follows up 1 year later: https://electrek.co/2022/07/25/electric-mini-truck-how-its-holding-up/ https://electrek.co/2022/07/25/electric-mini-truck-how-its-h...
no-dr-onboard 4y ago
> It sure beats a gas-powered UTV since I never have to fill it up or choke on exhaust. I don't know much about this site or the article author, but I have a hard time believing that this is anything but a dramatic exaggeration. I own a farm. I (and no one I know) would never seriously rely on an electric vehicle for utility. In general the batteries just aren't there and the rate at which they lose capacity is just too high to justify the cost. For $7,000 you could have a used UTV/SXS or a quad with a trailer in most markets. Both would handily outdo this Alibaba amalgamation. I won't even get into all the horror stories about uncaught grounds and battery safety for things on that site or the fact that preferring electric to ICEs is more of a virtue signal than net benefit for the planet. Cool experiment though.
- pedrocr 4y ago
  Toro and John Deere have been selling electric versions of their UTVs for decades now. They work great too. Plenty of farms use them and there's plenty to like in the EV models even with just lead-acid batteries.
- TheRealPomax 4y ago
  You might want to cruise the comments for the several people linking to the "one year later" article, which does a pretty good job showing these to be non-issues.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  >In general the batteries just aren't there and the rate at which they lose capacity is just too high to justify the cost. That's a great way of saying 'I've never heard of LiFePO4 batteries.'
chrisseaton 4y ago
> it was about 2:3 scale Lol it's normal size for the rest of the world.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lproven 4y ago
  Exactly! This whole article is so pervasively American that it was just about unreadable to me. It's a fairly rare and quite novel experience: it's in my native language, but so completely based on US assumptions and presumption of shared knowledge that I do not have, that it just... doesn't parse. * His parents apparently live on some plot of land the size of a largish city. Presumably alone? * The vehicle is a perfectly normal full-size truck of some kind, but he keeps talking about it as if it were a toy. He constantly compares it to a "golf cart" as if those were everyday things. I played golf for a decade and have never seen one except on TV. I presume it's a thing for morbidly-obese Americans? * It is a real car but it doesn't comply with fnargle-wurgle edict 27B § 42 from the Glarg of Bargwargle, but obviously everyone knows the Bargwargle so no need to explain that. * I bought it from China for only $LOTS but really it was a cost of $LOTS because $LOTS doesn't count and $LOTS is always there anyway so it's OK to pay $LOTS for a toy. Hello fellow humans! I am a perfectly normal human! * It is a toy but I can use it on my parent's private city where 100,000 of you peasants from the barbarian lands could live, but we are not barbarians and anyway we shoot barbarians here. Such a very strange article. Such a very strange country.
  - fooker 4y ago
    This is a cheap toy truck for pretty much any industrialized country. It’s weird to compare heavy machinery sizes as if it was up to personal preferences. Maybe look past your vitriol towards the US?
    - lproven 4y ago
      It is only toy-sized by US standards. By the standards of pretty much any other country in the world, it's a normal-sized vehicle, even a large one. Go read about tuk-tuks. Visit Asia some time. Vitriol? Pity for a culture so dependent on a machine I personally dislike: the motor car. Distaste and disdain for a culture whose example is destroying the world. I reserve vitriol for more important things.
giantg2 4y ago
What we really need is are manufacturers providing kits. Kit cars aren't subject to all these regulations. I think the cap is 2000 model units per year though.
dengsauve 4y ago
Pretty hilarious how negative the original article comments are, and it turned out after a year of use the author has nothing but positive things to say: https://electrek.co/2022/07/25/electric-mini-truck-how-its-holding-up/ https://electrek.co/2022/07/25/electric-mini-truck-how-its-h... I think there's a large education gap surround EVs that needs to be filled. Hopefully more articles and experiments like this continue to appear. If you have an EV, consider spreading the word - good and bad. It's important to talk about all aspects to both bring more users into the EV fold, and address existing issues.
- xattt 4y ago
  > large education gap surround EVs These comments are coming from the extrapolation of experience of imported personal electronics, as well as historical crash test results of CDM vehicles. (1) https://www.carscoops.com/2009/03/brilliance-bs4-not-so-brilliant-in-adac/ https://www.carscoops.com/2009/03/brilliance-bs4-not-so-bril...
  - Spastche 4y ago
    >2009
    - xattt 4y ago
      > historical
  - dymk 4y ago
    Yeah, I imagine if you're going to use a truck like this, it's for (relatively) slow hauling of stuff around a private property where there's low risk of hitting something. I wouldn't trust this in a collision with another vehicle even at low speed.
    - xattt 4y ago
      The crash test result is a proxy of build and construction quality. Did they wrap some tin foil around balsa and call it a day (figuratively), or was true thought given to the structure of the vehicle?
aaronbrethorst 4y ago
I want this—but street legal and with a top speed of 35 mph—to go run errands around my neighborhood.
paxys 4y ago
I have always thought that we need to make a better distinction between neighborhood vs city vs highway vehicles. A cheap compact <30 mph car that I can use for grocery runs and other quick errands around town would be fantastic, but there's zero market for something like it (Smart sadly fizzled out), mainly because of the onerous manufacturing and certification requirements mentioned in the article.
- ghaff 4y ago
  >there's zero market for something like it (Smart sadly fizzled out), mainly because of the onerous manufacturing and certification requirements mentioned in the article. Well, and most people don't want a specialized vehicle they can only use on certain roads for certain purposes but which take a spot on their property, need to be maintained at some level, etc. Maybe have some costs for registration, licensing, etc. If you have an actual farm you may have a tractor, etc. but most people don't want a vehicle they can only use for limited purposes. And, as soon as you're on public roads, things like insurance come into play as well.
  - tantalor 4y ago
    > specialized vehicle they can only use on certain roads for certain purposes You just described a bicycle, which are pretty popular last I checked
    - ghaff 4y ago
      There's a huge difference between storing a bicycle and storing what's basically another car.
      - tantalor 4y ago
        On the other hand, a golf-cart sized vehicles can fit into tiny garages with room to spare, and could eliminate need for several bicycles. I bet you could fit 2 small NEV into same space needed for 1 minivan or full size pickup/SUV.
sytelus 4y ago
So this is $3500 EV vehicle that has 40 miles range and 25 mph max speed. Few tweaks here and there and these will be perfect to sell in US or anywhere else. Tesla needs to up their game on getting $5k/$10k EVs delivered or their dream of fossil fuel vehicles would be fulfilled by someone else.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nkurz 4y ago
Here's the followup article about how it's holding up a year later: https://electrek.co/2022/07/25/electric-mini-truck-how-its-holding-up/ https://electrek.co/2022/07/25/electric-mini-truck-how-its-h... The quick summary is that it's still doing pretty well.
peanut_worm 4y ago
He says it cost 7k. Compared to the price of a new golf cart thats actually not bad at all. Might be useful in places where golf carts are street legal, which seems to be getting more popular in the US.
codethief 4y ago
Step 1: Have sufficiently big property to drive around your future mini truck. :)
weird-eye-issue 4y ago
They don't have the required Amazon affiliate disclosure before their affiliate links. It's just asking for trouble. Having it at the bottom is not enough for Amazon and they don't even use the correct wording either
divbzero 4y ago
I chuckled at this “F-50” but also wonder if this could be the start of a classic Clayton Christensen style disruption curve [1]. [1]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disruptivetechnology.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disruptivetechnology...
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  That's been my feeling with ChangLi cars in general. USD$2000 cars that are considered "fun" to drive on Alibaba seems very much like a leading indicator for a disruption curve of some sort. (Imagine if you saw $2000 cars on Amazon tomorrow.) A lot of people are still assuming the base price of EVs is going to remain around current ICE prices or worse the current ICE price plus "EV luxury tax" (which often seems to be misattributed to battery costs and/or battery supply chain issues), but ChangLi seems to be showing us that assumption may not hold up in the long term (especially once supply chain issues are sorted) and playfully remind us that there's a greater less explored vehicle spectrum space between "golf cart" and "real car" that ICE extremely underserved and EVs open up more niches to easily/enjoyably explore.
arb-spreads 4y ago
Decent deal. Probably <4k if purchased and assembled within China. Cheaper than most electric mountain bikes. Looks like electric ATVs/UTVs are around 15k, which would be a rough comp. Electric bikes / scooters / etc will hopefully become much more commonplace. Way cheaper than cars, and potentially more exercise. Hopefully more special purpose trails for bikes / pedestrians are created to accommodate demand. Certain places like the Netherlands do a great job at accommodating non-vehicle commuting.
JohnBooty 4y ago
This seems pretty cool for all the reasons the author said, but what about long-term? Getting replacement parts seems like a nightmare, if not impossible. What happens when the shocks wear out? When you bend a wheel rim on a rock? etc. Maybe I'm just not informed, and it's easy to get parts. Or maybe these things are so mechanically simple that it's no big deal.
- aembleton 4y ago
  > Getting replacement parts seems like a nightmare, if not impossible. Why? Can't he just go on Aliexpress and order them or contact the manufacturer?
  - JohnBooty 4y ago
    That's what I'm wondering. Can he? (Not a rhetorical question)
bilsbie 4y ago
I wonder if he was supposed to pay the chicken tax? 25% for light pickups.
renewiltord 4y ago
This is exactly the thing that I want. Too bad it's so hard to import. I am not willing to put up with any hassle. I just want a tiny open-bed vehicle that I can take around SF and the Bay Area. I'm happy to avoid freeways and stuff, though it will legitimately suck that I can't get over to the other side of the Bay with this.
chime 4y ago
> I also want to add some mounts on the hydraulic lifting bed so my parents can pickup their trash cans and drive them down their country road-like driveway all the way to the public road for trash pickup. Helpful tip for anyone else with a really long driveway like mine: I hooked a couple of straps to the back of my golf cart with extra large carabiners on the loose end that I can easily clip on to my trash cans. Works great and cost me under $40. Initially I kept trying to think of ways to lift/mount the trash cans to my cart but the cans can get pretty heavy once full. Since they already have wheels, I just tilt them slightly, clip on the carabiners, and off I go.
megablast 4y ago
It’s insane people buy stuff like this just for moving a few things around the farm. What a waste.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- aembleton 4y ago
  How else do you move things around a farm? Diesel trucks are also a waste and don't come with a hydraulic dump bed unless you spend a lot more than the $7k he paid.
ngcc_hk 4y ago
Street legal and insurance (even driving to neighbour and dump rubbish as in the articles) existed for a reason. The cost might not. But the item is needed in case any accident happened. It is not your home project with Bluetooth chip. It is moving machine that can hurt and kill. Good fun I guess and help the totalitarian country one more us$ dollars. God bless America.

480 points by qzervaas 4y ago

If those were imported massively in usa or canada [and take a chunk off the 2k shipping and other extra fees that could be averaged down], they would sell tons even if not street legal, awesome base for hacking or small vehicle for small farms or woodlands.

HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago

Honestly, I think $7,000 delivered for this is a pretty good price. It would make a nice farm vehicle, especially with that dump bed. It's in the same price range as a lower end UTV and looks like it would be far more comfortable doing, e.g., snow clearing duty. Swap in a set of BFG Mud Terrain tires and you're all set. Some feedback on reliability, the rust issues, etc. would be nice but I'd seriously think about getting one. As for it not being street legal, well I live out in the country. Golf carts, UTV's, ATV's, minibikes, on the roads around here are not at all unusual. Not legal, but I only know of one case of someone getting ticketed.

hotpotamus 4y ago
https://insideevs.com/news/502536/wuling-hongguang-mini-ev-cabrio/ https://insideevs.com/news/502536/wuling-hongguang-mini-ev-c... That's the actual car I think I want most in the world. It's so cheap and fun, and possibly even practical for me, but I don't think there's any way I could drive it in my city sadly.
- glogla 4y ago
  Yeah, the "larger cars are safer for people inside the car but more likely to kill people outside the car" red queen race made roads even more terrible. In car like that, you would get ran over by a lifted truck or mama-SUV pretty quickly.
  - beebeepka 4y ago
    If things continue this way, our current end game is tanks with machine guns and stuff. I feel safer already.
- jfim 4y ago
  Haha wow, that's such an adorable car. It's unfortunate that that kind of vehicle won't ever make it to the US though.
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
    The closest thing was probably the electric Smart car that Mercedes makes: https://carbuzz.com/cars/smart/fortwo-electric-drive-cabrio https://carbuzz.com/cars/smart/fortwo-electric-drive-cabrio They don’t sell them in the US anymore.
    - jfim 4y ago
      Oh wow, I didn't even know they made an electric smart, much less a convertible one. Not sure how good the EV part of that was (the article hints that it was terrible) but the form factor is really nice.
    - happymellon 4y ago
      Is the Honda-e available over there? That's a pretty nice mini electric vehicle.
      - WorldMaker 4y ago
        The Honda-e is not available at all in the US. The top line excuse is that side-view cameras are still not street legal in the US (though regulators are supposed to finally reconvene on that any day now) and the car's profile can't retrofit mirrors. But the current bottom line seems a disinterest from Honda of America in any EV products right now.
      - robin_reala 4y ago
        It’s really not that small in real life.
        happymellon 4y ago
        I'm in the UK and seen them about. They aren't very large, about the size of a Fiat 500 which is considered quite a compact car. [Edit] I've just looked it up and it is considered a mid-sized super-compact. Within 1/2" of the Fiesta for the wheelbase. Its quite dinky.
- beebeepka 4y ago
  I would actually get a driving license for a car like this. Why wouldn't you be able to drive it in your city. Doesn't look smaller than a smart.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    In the US you'd have to buy a bunch and put them through destructive crash tests to certify them, and I doubt these would pass - those smart cars actually have expensive high end steel structures built in that make them surprisingly resilient, and I doubt they do that in China. If they had 3 wheels you could skip a lot of that and count it as a motorcycle. Also, anything older than 25 years basically just bypasses the rules which means a lot of 90's Kei cars from Japan are starting to make their way in, but obviously those are combustion powered (still cool though). There is the concept of Neighborhood Electric Vehicle, but I don't believe they are allowed in my state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle Who knows, maybe there's a business opportunity to import these things and certify them - I'd be a buyer.
    - lovemenot 4y ago
      Speaking of Kei cars, the first two EVs that fall into the Kei car regulatory category were recently released in Japan. https://www.motor1.com/news/587022/nissan-sakura-electric-kei-car/ https://www.motor1.com/news/587022/nissan-sakura-electric-ke... https://www.mitsubishi-motors.co.jp/lineup/ek_x_ev/special/?intcid2=top_mainbnr_slide1 https://www.mitsubishi-motors.co.jp/lineup/ek_x_ev/special/?...
    - 7speter 4y ago
      The “destructive crash tests” are required so that you have a fighting chance in surviving a crash with a SUV
      - hotpotamus 4y ago
        I understand that, but how would I do in crash with an SUV if I were on a motorcycle and are those street legal?
- intrepidhero 4y ago
  https://www.arcimoto.com/ https://www.arcimoto.com/ Not nearly as cheap, but street legal in the US and looks like loads of fun.
- prmoustache 4y ago
  I don't understand why anyone would choose that over a motorbike.
- jaclaz 4y ago
  I don't think it will ever arrive in the US, but the Citroen AMI is a nice little thing that is having some success in some EU countries: https://www.citroen.co.uk/models/future-models/ami.html https://www.citroen.co.uk/models/future-models/ami.html Though personally (if it will ever be produced in mass) I like this "re-make" of the old Isetta, the microlino: https://microlino-car.com/en/microlino https://microlino-car.com/en/microlino
hedora 4y ago
Yeah; very, very tempting. It makes me wonder if there are specialty shops in the US that can cut down on the $2000-$3000 delivery charge.
Arrath 4y ago
Yeah I have to agree. This seems a lot more suited to most of my uses than a more expensive Polaris UTV. With an enclosed and climate controlled cab!
motohagiography 4y ago
These could be competitive with a Kioti for golf courses, fairgrounds, and horse farms. If they there were a utv track kit option, doubly so in places with winters.
olyjohn 4y ago
Jason Torchinsky from The Autopian imported a ChangLi a couple of years ago. He has posted regular updates since he got it (his old posts are still up at Jalopnik). I don't know how it compares to this one exactly, but there were a few posts showing some sketchy wiring, and some wires that nearly caught on fire. But it should give you some idea how it's been working.
- sjs382 4y ago
  First thing I thought of when I saw this story. Heres a link to one of the posts: https://jalopnik.com/the-worlds-cheapest-ev-is-genuinely-good-1847048450 https://jalopnik.com/the-worlds-cheapest-ev-is-genuinely-goo...
enragedcacti 4y ago
It really isn't too bad if you have the right use case. You could get a Kei truck which makes a lot more power and you can register, but you'll be paying a good bit more ($9k for a 1990 with a dump bed near me) and you'll have the fun of maintaining a 30 year old JDM vehicle.
- bitexploder 4y ago
  You can get them at 20 years old. Some states will not let you register them, like my home state, Colorado. Sad times, they are pretty practical.
throwaway0a5e 4y ago
$7k gets you a really nice compact pickup, not anything the average HNer would buy, but nice enough for farm duty and new enough to not need anything for years. And you can drive it down the street. And when you snap something doing farmer stuff (which you will, because farmer) you can go buy a replacement part easily.
- Gustomaximus 4y ago
  As someone that lives on a farm, I was thinking the same, you're getting a reasonable second hand ute "paddock basher" at that price. At the same time I love seeing this and where its going. I always think of Luke on his uncles farm in star wars and that farm work will increasing change more to fixing the machines doing the job, than the job itself. And I suspect ongoing electric powered will suit farmers more than anyone as they have the space and lack of neighbours to create power themselves.
ldoughty 4y ago
I really want to agree -- I really want a truck like this in the USA, but unfortunately I need to disagree simply because it is not street legal. I have an old 2001 beater truck I use for the purpose now, but I can't replace it with this EV because it's not street legal. I live in a rural area, but luckily I can drive 2 miles to a dump (transfer station) and 5 miles to a place with bulk mulch, soil, gravel, etc... But I can't possibly get to either without going on state roads... And I can't drop my gas truck and replace it with an EV for $7k if it would not be legally usable. I can't see many farms that could use this. For the same reason -- I certainly don't want to use my truck to get serval buckets of mulch, just to shovel it into the EV, then to shovel it out at the final destination. If the gov lets me slap "farm use" tags on this, and that's all is needed... Okay, I'm interested.. but I think there's usually more requirements
- splistud 4y ago
- R0b0t1 4y ago
  If you assemble it from a kit it becomes legal. No parts requirements iirc, specific cutout for homebuilt machines.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- MarcelOlsz 4y ago
  Just hitch it and use it that way. Worst case scenario you pay a little more for gas. Problem solved.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    Isn't the entire point to not be using any gas? You want to use a gas powered ICE truck to tow the EV to load contents into the EV's bed, then tow the EV back to where ever just to avoid transferring content from ICE->EV->application?
- asdff 4y ago
slg 4y ago
>Golf carts, UTV's, ATV's, minibikes, on the roads around here are not at all unusual. Not legal, but I only know of one case of someone getting ticketed. Although I do wonder if all the conveniences that makes this more carlike combined with its uniqueness in the US would make it more likely to receive legal pushback. Something that clearly isn't even attempting to be a street legal vehicle like a golf cart is easier to excuse. A cop who sees this might be more suspicious of the vehicle and how you actually use it.
splistud 4y ago
ghaff 4y ago
My neighbor with about 35 acres has a golf cart she drives around. Probably wouldn't need this as she also has a tractor and a pickup but can easily imagine something like this for a large property. Another neighbor has an ATV he uses for snow plowing his long driveway. You need to keep on top of things relative to plowing with a pickup but he seems to manage. But yeah. If you're going to have farm vehicles are probably better and more standard options.
m463 4y ago
I would love to love it, but I don't know how it holds up against a used pickup truck, say a used small toyota pickup or an older f-150.
- bluGill 4y ago
  You don't have to deal with getting fuel for it. Sure the used truck can drive to a gas station (instead of gas cans), but it is still a hassle. Large farms will have fuel tanks behind the barn so they can drive a tractor over to fill it, but most people don't go through enough fuel to make that worth it. This you just plug in when you are done and it is always ready to go. If you use this all day it probably won't work, but most small property owners would use it for an hour or two (over the course of an entire day), and so it always has plenty of range. I don't see why they sell gas lawn mowers at WalMart (do they still?) as for home owners electric now makes more sense than dealing with gas. Sure the big lawn mowing companies use their mowers more in a day than the battery will last, but the small home owner doesn't.
fsckboy 4y ago
> the rust issues rust issues on cars are actually caused by water pooling in inside cavities and rusting its way out over time because they don't dry out. water on the outside of a piece of metal isn't really that serious a threat for rusting its way in (you see lots of cars driven for years with unrepaired body damage and they don't rust away) I don't imagine the rust he saw was bubbling up through the paint from inside, I doubt it's a problem
chemmail 4y ago
I'm not sure if thats really a good deal. You can find some Leafs with new bats for like $3000-4000 all over. And thats road legal anywhere. Maybe chop the top and you got a pickup.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  Can I throw a set of All Terrains on a Leaf? Also, ground clearance would probably be an issue.
fnands 4y ago
My worry would be maintenance. Yeah sure, you can get it for cheap, but will it take 6 months every time you need a replacement part?
- the_biot 4y ago
  Possibly, but then 1) it won't require much in the way of maintenance or replacement parts, being a really low end EV, and 2) I suspect everything but the chassis is bog standard stuff you can get anywhere. This isn't going to be like a car with its hundreds (thousands?) of molded ABS parts everywhere.

OrangeMonkey 4y ago

Impressive. At this price point they had to cut some features. I wonder if one of those features is "Safety" and another one is "The front won't fall off".

TheRealPomax 4y ago
Safety at a blistering speed of checks article 25 mph? Who in their right mind would design for safety if the thing can't even outpace a professional cyclist?
- Jiejeing 4y ago
  25mph is plenty fast for a car accident.
  - TheRealPomax 4y ago
    Or a bike accident. Yeah it's going to hurt, you might even break some things, but for it to be any more than that would be the definition of a freak accident.
- acdha 4y ago
  25mph is where lethality starts to go up, but that doesn’t mean things going 24mph harmlessly bounce off of pedestrians (good news, you’re not dead. Bad news, you can’t work for long enough to go bankrupt). This still weighs a lot more than a cyclist does and it’s reasonable to say that there should be a safety bar to reduce serious injuries even if that’s a lot lower than a vehicle which can go 100mph.
- witheld 4y ago
  That’s not professional level I’d say most cyclists can sprint at 25+
  - TheRealPomax 4y ago
    But only briefly, because they'd have to sprint, so I'm ignoring that part.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> glass has to come from DOT-registered glass factories, the backup camera has to come from DOT-registered backup camera factories, etc. It’s not enough to simply go 25 mph and have seat belts and blinkers... Even if the cars had all the necessary DOT parts, the factory that produces them in China also has to be registered with the NHTSA to allow the cars to be street legal in the US. Some of this makes sense. Much of it doesn't, or could be vastly simplified for low-speed use cases.

exar0815 4y ago
Well, obviously everything makes sense! Atleast when knowing the reason for that is simply very successful lobbying by established companies to prevent anyone from entering any vehicle or vehicle supplying market without enormous upfront costs .
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  Imagine hitting a pedestrian at 4mph on the side of the road with one of your headlights. The headlight shatters. However, the light turned out to not actually be safety glass and not shatter in harmless cubes but in nasty long splinters that hit an artery and the pedestrian bleeds out on the side of the road. The Chinese company won't give a shit because they have no certification so nothing to lose. They didn't even export it to you, some random AliExpress seller did. So you end up in jail for it. This kind of learning from previous mistakes informed the complex legislation around vehicles. Most of these things have good reason, not just lobbying. Manufacturers love cutting costs and you need a big stick to keep them honest. Remember the Ford Pinto? The Boeing 737MAX? Or what Volkswagen did to trick emissions tests? In fact I'd be surprised if the factories welcome all the paperwork that comes with it. In the end it's not to protect the industry, it's to protect the people (not just you but other road users as well) from an "all too eager to cut corners" industry. And random Chinese factories love cutting corners even more and there's virtually no risk to them. The only way to be sure is to have the whole chain certified.
  - Gordonjcp 4y ago

bobsmooth 4y ago

What a cute little truck. It's crazy the stuff you can import from China.

Glyptodon 4y ago

I'm confused by street legal thing. How do people register cars they make themselves if there are all these requirements?

brianwawok 4y ago
You are paying for a 1 off inspection. If you go buy a Honda Civic you can skip the inspection, because it follows the street legal requirements.
kgilpin 4y ago
If you build it yourself then some /many of the regulations don’t apply. For example you don’t need airbags (in Massachusetts). It varies by state: https://www.semasan.com/resources/everything-you-need-register-and-title-your-hobby-car-all-50-states https://www.semasan.com/resources/everything-you-need-regist... Roughly the same thing is true for airplanes - experimental (“home built”) have to be airworthy but not certificated. They say it’s due to long tradition of DIY vehicles in America.
bri3d 4y ago
Self-built cars are usually a completely different process, and also don't involve import. But, the author of the article also massively overstates the requirements for a legal vehicle under the Low Speed Vehicle rules. The full FMVSS rules are gargantuan, complex, and hard to meet, but the LSV rules really aren't. They basically need to not go 25mph, meet dimension and weight requirements, and have lights, reflectors, seat belts, and an approved windshield. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/571.500 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/571.500 The manufacturer then self-attests that the vehicle meets FMVSS, and submits paperwork documenting their VIN format. Unless there are complaints or an investigation, that's pretty much it.
tantalor 4y ago
Generally they aren't. Here's an example: > Factory Five products are expressly sold for custom car-building, racing and off-road use and are not intended to be used in conventional passenger or other legal highway applications. https://www.factoryfive.com/terms-conditions https://www.factoryfive.com/terms-conditions

WebbWeaver 4y ago

It does not look like it would outperform UTVs at similar or lower price points.

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
What air conditioned UTV is available for $7000?
- WebbWeaver 4y ago
  That's a fine point. You can buy one separately for ~1-5k. I kinda wish there could be a solar panel mount so nobody would accidentally run over it with a truck.
  - TheRealPomax 4y ago
    Also, what UTV even comes with a dump bed?
    - happyopossum 4y ago
      Can-Am defender, AC Prowler, Honda Pioneer, any number of John Deere UTVs, etc. Pretty much every line of farm-focused UTV has a dump bed option... I'm guessing when you hear UTV you're thinking of the 60MPH off-road blitzing side by sides that are so popular at the dunes these days, but that's only part of the market for these.
      - TheRealPomax 4y ago
        Sure, but we were talking about this being an excellent choice given what it offers at its operational price tag of $7000, having conveniences no UTV has in that bracket. All of the ones you listed are fine UTVs, but they also cost literally twice as much =)
      - pedrocr 4y ago
        Once you limit to EV the choices are pretty limited though. Toro and Deere have decent options and all the others at most have a retrofitted electric motor to a transmission designed for gas/diesel. Hopefully the ramp up of LFP battery production revamps this market quite a bit.

pedrocr 4y ago

We have a Toro Workman electric cart on our small farm. It's extremely useful even while being quite basic and powered by lead-acid batteries. We bought it used a while ago but a new one would cost 15k€. The new ones are a little nicer but still mostly unchanged over the years. John Deere sells a Gator that's almost the same thing. I'm definitely hoping some of these manufacturers shake up this market. Hopefully the small tractor and skid steer markets as well although that's quite a bit more complex because of managing the attachments. Battery weight is irrelevant and so is range for most people, so lead-acid is fine for all these applications. LFP can be a bonus though. A few things have started popping up but nothing really good. A lot of the time it's people attaching an electric motor to an overly complicated transmission designed for the shortcomings of gas/diesel motors.

hallway_monitor 4y ago

Pretty much what you'd expect. I'm impressed. Also, the guy made more than his money back from youtube revenue

haunter 4y ago

>the backup camera has to come from DOT-registered backup camera factories Does that mean you can't have a street legal car in the US without a backup camera? Or if it does have a backup camera it has to come from a DOT-registered factory? If the latter then why not just disable it? Or that's not even enough?

colinmhayes 4y ago
Yes, I believe new cars need to have backup cameras in the us and Europe. Old cars are grandfathered.
Arrath 4y ago
Yes backup cameras are mandated for new vehicles now. The regulation was put into place starting MY 2020.
bri3d 4y ago
The author of this article does not understand FMVSS or DOT regulations. 1) Yes, this is true, for several years the FMVSS has required backup cameras for full speed cars. However, this isn't true for low speed vehicles. 2) This just isn't true at all. FMVSS do not require factories to be certified in any specific way. https://www.rearviewsafety.com/pub/static/version1558698936/frontend/rearviewsafety/theme/en_US/images/FMVSS-111-Full-Compliance.pdf https://www.rearviewsafety.com/pub/static/version1558698936/... These are the requirements. Manufacturers self-attest that they comply. The NHTSA reserves the right to respond to complaints or independently inspect their vehicles. They don't inspect or register "factories."
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
glxxyz 4y ago
Every new vehicle has to have a backup camera.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

sharadov 4y ago

It's outrageous! Love it, what fun!

zdw 4y ago

There's a sequel article that goes over how well it's held up: https://electrek.co/2022/07/25/electric-mini-truck-how-its-holding-up/ https://electrek.co/2022/07/25/electric-mini-truck-how-its-h...

fuzzythinker 4y ago

Hmm, wonder why the 1 year ago post is posted instead of the new one today that follows up 1 year later: https://electrek.co/2022/07/25/electric-mini-truck-how-its-holding-up/ https://electrek.co/2022/07/25/electric-mini-truck-how-its-h...

no-dr-onboard 4y ago

> It sure beats a gas-powered UTV since I never have to fill it up or choke on exhaust. I don't know much about this site or the article author, but I have a hard time believing that this is anything but a dramatic exaggeration. I own a farm. I (and no one I know) would never seriously rely on an electric vehicle for utility. In general the batteries just aren't there and the rate at which they lose capacity is just too high to justify the cost. For $7,000 you could have a used UTV/SXS or a quad with a trailer in most markets. Both would handily outdo this Alibaba amalgamation. I won't even get into all the horror stories about uncaught grounds and battery safety for things on that site or the fact that preferring electric to ICEs is more of a virtue signal than net benefit for the planet. Cool experiment though.

pedrocr 4y ago
Toro and John Deere have been selling electric versions of their UTVs for decades now. They work great too. Plenty of farms use them and there's plenty to like in the EV models even with just lead-acid batteries.
TheRealPomax 4y ago
You might want to cruise the comments for the several people linking to the "one year later" article, which does a pretty good job showing these to be non-issues.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
>In general the batteries just aren't there and the rate at which they lose capacity is just too high to justify the cost. That's a great way of saying 'I've never heard of LiFePO4 batteries.'

chrisseaton 4y ago

> it was about 2:3 scale Lol it's normal size for the rest of the world.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lproven 4y ago
Exactly! This whole article is so pervasively American that it was just about unreadable to me. It's a fairly rare and quite novel experience: it's in my native language, but so completely based on US assumptions and presumption of shared knowledge that I do not have, that it just... doesn't parse. * His parents apparently live on some plot of land the size of a largish city. Presumably alone? * The vehicle is a perfectly normal full-size truck of some kind, but he keeps talking about it as if it were a toy. He constantly compares it to a "golf cart" as if those were everyday things. I played golf for a decade and have never seen one except on TV. I presume it's a thing for morbidly-obese Americans? * It is a real car but it doesn't comply with fnargle-wurgle edict 27B § 42 from the Glarg of Bargwargle, but obviously everyone knows the Bargwargle so no need to explain that. * I bought it from China for only $LOTS but really it was a cost of $LOTS because $LOTS doesn't count and $LOTS is always there anyway so it's OK to pay $LOTS for a toy. Hello fellow humans! I am a perfectly normal human! * It is a toy but I can use it on my parent's private city where 100,000 of you peasants from the barbarian lands could live, but we are not barbarians and anyway we shoot barbarians here. Such a very strange article. Such a very strange country.
- fooker 4y ago
  This is a cheap toy truck for pretty much any industrialized country. It’s weird to compare heavy machinery sizes as if it was up to personal preferences. Maybe look past your vitriol towards the US?
  - lproven 4y ago
    It is only toy-sized by US standards. By the standards of pretty much any other country in the world, it's a normal-sized vehicle, even a large one. Go read about tuk-tuks. Visit Asia some time. Vitriol? Pity for a culture so dependent on a machine I personally dislike: the motor car. Distaste and disdain for a culture whose example is destroying the world. I reserve vitriol for more important things.

giantg2 4y ago

What we really need is are manufacturers providing kits. Kit cars aren't subject to all these regulations. I think the cap is 2000 model units per year though.

dengsauve 4y ago

Pretty hilarious how negative the original article comments are, and it turned out after a year of use the author has nothing but positive things to say: https://electrek.co/2022/07/25/electric-mini-truck-how-its-holding-up/ https://electrek.co/2022/07/25/electric-mini-truck-how-its-h... I think there's a large education gap surround EVs that needs to be filled. Hopefully more articles and experiments like this continue to appear. If you have an EV, consider spreading the word - good and bad. It's important to talk about all aspects to both bring more users into the EV fold, and address existing issues.

xattt 4y ago
> large education gap surround EVs These comments are coming from the extrapolation of experience of imported personal electronics, as well as historical crash test results of CDM vehicles. (1) https://www.carscoops.com/2009/03/brilliance-bs4-not-so-brilliant-in-adac/ https://www.carscoops.com/2009/03/brilliance-bs4-not-so-bril...
- Spastche 4y ago
  >2009
  - xattt 4y ago
    > historical
- dymk 4y ago
  Yeah, I imagine if you're going to use a truck like this, it's for (relatively) slow hauling of stuff around a private property where there's low risk of hitting something. I wouldn't trust this in a collision with another vehicle even at low speed.
  - xattt 4y ago
    The crash test result is a proxy of build and construction quality. Did they wrap some tin foil around balsa and call it a day (figuratively), or was true thought given to the structure of the vehicle?

aaronbrethorst 4y ago

I want this—but street legal and with a top speed of 35 mph—to go run errands around my neighborhood.

paxys 4y ago

I have always thought that we need to make a better distinction between neighborhood vs city vs highway vehicles. A cheap compact <30 mph car that I can use for grocery runs and other quick errands around town would be fantastic, but there's zero market for something like it (Smart sadly fizzled out), mainly because of the onerous manufacturing and certification requirements mentioned in the article.

ghaff 4y ago
>there's zero market for something like it (Smart sadly fizzled out), mainly because of the onerous manufacturing and certification requirements mentioned in the article. Well, and most people don't want a specialized vehicle they can only use on certain roads for certain purposes but which take a spot on their property, need to be maintained at some level, etc. Maybe have some costs for registration, licensing, etc. If you have an actual farm you may have a tractor, etc. but most people don't want a vehicle they can only use for limited purposes. And, as soon as you're on public roads, things like insurance come into play as well.
- tantalor 4y ago
  > specialized vehicle they can only use on certain roads for certain purposes You just described a bicycle, which are pretty popular last I checked
  - ghaff 4y ago
    There's a huge difference between storing a bicycle and storing what's basically another car.
    - tantalor 4y ago
      On the other hand, a golf-cart sized vehicles can fit into tiny garages with room to spare, and could eliminate need for several bicycles. I bet you could fit 2 small NEV into same space needed for 1 minivan or full size pickup/SUV.

sytelus 4y ago

So this is $3500 EV vehicle that has 40 miles range and 25 mph max speed. Few tweaks here and there and these will be perfect to sell in US or anywhere else. Tesla needs to up their game on getting $5k/$10k EVs delivered or their dream of fossil fuel vehicles would be fulfilled by someone else.

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nkurz 4y ago

Here's the followup article about how it's holding up a year later: https://electrek.co/2022/07/25/electric-mini-truck-how-its-holding-up/ https://electrek.co/2022/07/25/electric-mini-truck-how-its-h... The quick summary is that it's still doing pretty well.

peanut_worm 4y ago

He says it cost 7k. Compared to the price of a new golf cart thats actually not bad at all. Might be useful in places where golf carts are street legal, which seems to be getting more popular in the US.

codethief 4y ago

Step 1: Have sufficiently big property to drive around your future mini truck. :)

weird-eye-issue 4y ago

They don't have the required Amazon affiliate disclosure before their affiliate links. It's just asking for trouble. Having it at the bottom is not enough for Amazon and they don't even use the correct wording either

divbzero 4y ago

I chuckled at this “F-50” but also wonder if this could be the start of a classic Clayton Christensen style disruption curve [1]. [1]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disruptivetechnology.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disruptivetechnology...

WorldMaker 4y ago
That's been my feeling with ChangLi cars in general. USD$2000 cars that are considered "fun" to drive on Alibaba seems very much like a leading indicator for a disruption curve of some sort. (Imagine if you saw $2000 cars on Amazon tomorrow.) A lot of people are still assuming the base price of EVs is going to remain around current ICE prices or worse the current ICE price plus "EV luxury tax" (which often seems to be misattributed to battery costs and/or battery supply chain issues), but ChangLi seems to be showing us that assumption may not hold up in the long term (especially once supply chain issues are sorted) and playfully remind us that there's a greater less explored vehicle spectrum space between "golf cart" and "real car" that ICE extremely underserved and EVs open up more niches to easily/enjoyably explore.

arb-spreads 4y ago

Decent deal. Probably <4k if purchased and assembled within China. Cheaper than most electric mountain bikes. Looks like electric ATVs/UTVs are around 15k, which would be a rough comp. Electric bikes / scooters / etc will hopefully become much more commonplace. Way cheaper than cars, and potentially more exercise. Hopefully more special purpose trails for bikes / pedestrians are created to accommodate demand. Certain places like the Netherlands do a great job at accommodating non-vehicle commuting.

JohnBooty 4y ago

This seems pretty cool for all the reasons the author said, but what about long-term? Getting replacement parts seems like a nightmare, if not impossible. What happens when the shocks wear out? When you bend a wheel rim on a rock? etc. Maybe I'm just not informed, and it's easy to get parts. Or maybe these things are so mechanically simple that it's no big deal.

aembleton 4y ago
> Getting replacement parts seems like a nightmare, if not impossible. Why? Can't he just go on Aliexpress and order them or contact the manufacturer?
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  That's what I'm wondering. Can he? (Not a rhetorical question)

bilsbie 4y ago

I wonder if he was supposed to pay the chicken tax? 25% for light pickups.

renewiltord 4y ago

This is exactly the thing that I want. Too bad it's so hard to import. I am not willing to put up with any hassle. I just want a tiny open-bed vehicle that I can take around SF and the Bay Area. I'm happy to avoid freeways and stuff, though it will legitimately suck that I can't get over to the other side of the Bay with this.

chime 4y ago

> I also want to add some mounts on the hydraulic lifting bed so my parents can pickup their trash cans and drive them down their country road-like driveway all the way to the public road for trash pickup. Helpful tip for anyone else with a really long driveway like mine: I hooked a couple of straps to the back of my golf cart with extra large carabiners on the loose end that I can easily clip on to my trash cans. Works great and cost me under $40. Initially I kept trying to think of ways to lift/mount the trash cans to my cart but the cans can get pretty heavy once full. Since they already have wheels, I just tilt them slightly, clip on the carabiners, and off I go.

megablast 4y ago

It’s insane people buy stuff like this just for moving a few things around the farm. What a waste.

deleted 4y ago
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aembleton 4y ago
How else do you move things around a farm? Diesel trucks are also a waste and don't come with a hydraulic dump bed unless you spend a lot more than the $7k he paid.

ngcc_hk 4y ago

Street legal and insurance (even driving to neighbour and dump rubbish as in the articles) existed for a reason. The cost might not. But the item is needed in case any accident happened. It is not your home project with Bluetooth chip. It is moving machine that can hurt and kill. Good fun I guess and help the totalitarian country one more us$ dollars. God bless America.