Tiny car for big jobs. China already sells more electric vehicles than the rest of the world combined . And there’s a long list of the categories you can choose from—including large buses, sports cars, two-wheeled motorcycles, and zippy scooters. One of the hottest categories in that list is “ tiny cars .” These mini-vehicles can cost as little as $1,000 and, in China at least, you don’t even need a driver’s license to use them. The catch? Their top speed is less than 40 miles per hour, they run on cheap lead-acid batteries, and they have little to no crash protection. That’s not much of a concern for Chinese users, who are buying these low-speed electric vehicles (LSEVs) like hot cakes . Four-year-old electric vehicle maker Kaiyun Motors thinks that it can tempt Americans and Europeans to buy into the craze. “Mini-electric vehicles are more than enough to meet consumers’ daily needs,” Wang Chao, founder of Kaiyun, told Bloomberg (paywall). “ There is a huge market out there around the world.” Kaiyun will start selling its “Pickman” electric pickup in the US, Germany, and Italy as soon as next month. The base Chinese model sells for 16,800 yuan […]
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