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

electrek.co

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

#51

Post by dengsauve »

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-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.

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

#52

Post by enragedcacti »

Glyptodon wrote: post #15

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

In addition to what other commenters mentioned, in some states there is a legal gray area for registering a vehicle as just modifications on top of a donor vehicle that's already street legal. Commonly you start with a donor as a base anyway and no one is going to independently verify that your mods align with DOT standards.

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

#53

Post by ldoughty »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #2

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 ge…

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

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

#54

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

jfim wrote: post #8
hotpotamus wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

The closest thing was probably the electric Smart car that Mercedes makes: https://carbuzz.com/cars/smart/fortwo-electric-drive-cabrio

They don’t sell them in the US anymore.

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

#55

Post by shepherdjerred »

OrangeMonkey wrote: post #7

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".

Safety doesn’t seem to be a major factor for a farm truck. “The front won’t fall off” seems to be a non-issue based on his 1 year update.

They must’ve cut corners, but if you’re not taking this on public roads they’re not corners you care much about anyway. At $2000 you’re not going to do much better.

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

#56

Post by TheRealPomax »

OrangeMonkey wrote: post #7

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".

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?

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

#57

Post by TheRealPomax »

WebbWeaver wrote: post #48
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What air conditioned UTV is available for $7000?

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.

Also, what UTV even comes with a dump bed?

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

#58

Post by lovemenot »

hotpotamus wrote: post #47
beebeepka wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 th…

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-ke...

https://www.mitsubishi-motors.co.jp/lineup/ek_x_ev/special/?...

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

#59

Post by pedrocr »

no-dr-onboard wrote: post #30

> 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…

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.

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

#60

Post by TheRealPomax »

no-dr-onboard wrote: post #30

> 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…

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.
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