Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/06/16/heres-what-the-worlds-chea.html
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That’s not a terrible set of features for $1200. The biggest killer is that it is underpowered by golf cart standards. Hills of any kind are an issue. That and the import taxes.
The relatively large number of features also means there’s a relatively large amount of stuff to break on it, and QA can’t be very extensive on something that costs less than a cellphone.
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I saw a few cars like this in the background of TV footage for the recent covid outbreak in Beijing.
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That - or something like it - feels like the future of personal transportation. The absurdity involved in Americans driving around vehicles that, on average weigh over 4000 pounds and get 24mpg, to go buy milk at the grocery store can’t spread around the globe - or even remain the case in the US. There are hundreds of millions of people driving some sort of motorbike around the globe, and something like this feels like a logical replacement for many of them.
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More and better batteries and a bigger motor, for 2-3x the price, and it would be awesome. At what point does it need some actual safety though? That requires a complete redesign. I want to know how much of this is made of bargain-sourced very generic/off the shelf/easily interchangable components, I am betting all of it except the sub frame and body, maybe even the windows?
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Fixed that for ya!
But seriously, is there some rationale for why it looks that way?
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The market for this car is clearly not the USA.
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That Corvair-ish lack of independent suspension (see 4:15) kinda scares me a little.
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Pffft, the Messerschmitt KR200 “Kabinenroller” was waaay too overpowered. 9.5 horsepower?! Even the 4.2 horsepower Peel p50, the world’s smallest “car” (or rather, an enclosed scooter trike), looks excessive in comparison. (And both were much, much more expensive.)
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Yeah i gotta question the long term viability for importing such a car. If anything breaks what are the guarantees of being able to source parts reliably? For someone handy it’s probable to machine parts for it and also do your own upgrades to the car, and as such i think it’d be loads of fun as a project to personalize and customize it to ones taste. But for the average person this car seems like a terrible idea.
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I would absolutely consider getting something like this for most errands and saving the car for things like driving on the highway or trips of more than ten miles. I would not do it until it could get up to street speeds and climb hills.
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Yeah, being able to do, say, 20mph and being able to get up hills seem like the min specs to make it really useful as a car alternative. But as it is, it’s more a bicycle alternative rather than an automobile alternative.
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If it is like with other China-made stuff, every part is probably available either on Aliexpress or by request. At least this is the case for mass made products like TIG welding machines and air compressors. The best thing is that they are not gouging spare part prices, unlike most European manufacturers (for example some parts for Metabo compressors cost nearly as much as a whole compressor).
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I’ve seen all the YT videos by these guys and in one he shows the actual engineering, in fact he goes on to rave about it.
I can’t see why.
There’s mostly standard hardware and a few stamped/welded parts that compose the mechanicals. Overall, I got the impression of a build quality equal to a Harbor Freight super cheap trailer.
There’s literally hundreds of parts on Alibaba, everything from complete rear drive axles w/motor ($250) to rolling frames ($800 and up) ready for your custom body.
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Well, the car itself (which they bought from Aliexpress) was about $900, and the batteries were about $150 on top. That puts it at about the price you’d expect for something built in China from parts readily available in China, but I’d expect a $900 car to be really crap, but it turns out to only be slightly crap.
Even with all the shipping etc. pushing the price up to over $2000, that’s still about half of the cost of a new golf cart, and you get so much more than a golf cart (A roof! Windscreen wipers! An MP3 player!).
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It’s relatively cheap by golf cart standards, these days.
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I mean, not the cheapest by quite a stretch, but if you want something domestic, and are already making sacrifices in comfort, safety and power, might as well add pedals and a solar panel…
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I am the sort of person most Americans hate, including a lot of “green” or “progressive” people, because I think American cars should be lighter, smaller, and more efficient. I also think we should drive more slowly on surface roads, and on many stretches of interstate/expressway.
I know two families who are vocally “green” but who “need” a 3.5 ton Ford Excusion to move around their two kids. And I know two more green-ion-Facebook families who need a 2.25 ton Honda Odyssey for their families of four and five, respectively. One of the mothers said she needed the Honda Odyssey for safety, because the auto opening door would prevent her from dropping a baby.
I know many, many more people who “need” a big vehicle for safety, or who “need” a lot of power because they have to commute on the interstate.
But when I go to Europe, I see lots of people in smaller cars managing just fine, even on the autobahn. Heck, we took a family of five through the Alps in a Hyundai with a little one-liter diesel engine.
The thing is, if we ALL had smaller cars, then the smaller cars wouldn’t be so dangerous. And if we drove a bit more slowly, accident rates and danger would fall even more. And if we actually had legit, non-scam enforcement of traffic laws, accident rates would fall still more. But all these things are anathema to Americans, who take to their vehicles like Slim Pickens to an H-bomb.
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