When Tesla unveiled its original luxury electric sports car, the Roadster, back in 2006, the company upended the idea of what electric vehicles could be. Prior to the emergence of the sleek and powerful Roadster, EVs were dismissed as essentially slow, tiny electric golf carts.
It turns out the EV evolution is coming full circle, at least in some regions in the world, reports Bloomberg.
In China, a 10-foot-long minicar called the Wuling Hongguang Mini — made by General Motors and Chinese automakers SAIC and Guangxi Automobile — is topping 250,000 in total sales. That makes it the best-selling EV in the country, outperforming Tesla’s Model 3 and others.
Young families are buying the car because at around $5,000 it’s cheap, it’s easy to drive, park and charge, and it’s fun to personalize with a Crayola box of color options and stickers from the likes of Pokemon and Hello Kitty. The car is reportedly ubiquitous in the Chinese city of Liuzhou, which has chargers all over the place; the city offers free parking and charging to support the growing EV market.
