This cheap electric half-car, half-truck is like a Chinese El Camino

Keep in mind that time somebody in China sent me a free panda car? Properly after cruisin’ for one more proverbial bruisin’ within the Alibaba electrical automotive catalog, I stumbled upon a variant of it that appears to have a truck’s rear finish tacked on the again. It’s foolish and enjoyable and simply oh-so-perfect.

Meet this week’s Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week!

Look, there are occasions in historical past when combining two seemingly divergent designs has resulted in triumphant success. The spork is an effective instance, representing the height of culinary engineering. The mullet haircut is ever-deserving of a spot on the checklist, in all its glory. The Chevy El Camino (or Ford Ranchero, Dodge Rampage, or your coupe utility of selection) definitely makes the minimize.

However whereas all of these examples supply the suitable stability of “enterprise in entrance, celebration in again”, at this time’s bizarre little half-car from Alibaba appears to have missed on each accounts.

It lacks the cool issue of an El Camino and goes straight for clown automotive up entrance, clown truck in again.

Don’t get me improper – I nonetheless find it irresistible! It’s obtained an virtually similar design to my own Minghong electric car that I examined out early final yr (no less than, it’s like mine when considered from head-on).

It’s even a four-seater, which I suppose makes it a crew cab?

In idea, it sounds unimaginable. A brief little electrical automotive with a pickup truck mattress in again, providing seating for the entire household and sufficient house to hold all of your cement baggage on the similar time. You realize, for these household outings the place in your means again from Six Flags you all set up some dwelling deck footings collectively.

It even comes proper from the manufacturing unit with the panda paint job, which has apparently impressed our graphics man to go full panda this week.

The humor right here isn’t solely within the automobile design although. Taking a stroll via the spec sheet reveals some actual doozies.

The facility is listed at “lower than 50 kW”, which is about as helpful as saying the automotive has lower than 50 wheels. Primarily based on my expertise with these autos, I’m guessing it’s obtained round 48 kW lower than 50 kW (leading to round three horsepower).

There are a number of helpful specs detailed on the product web page although, comparable to the highest velocity being listed as 40 km/h (25 mph) and the battery as 60V.

I’m unsure how far it’ll go, however I do know it has a truck mattress you could possibly replenish with additional batteries if you wish to go even additional.

It’s good to see that the little truck is even obtainable in a variety of colours, permitting you to customise it to your individual persona.

The panda comes pre-installed on all of them although, so I hope you could have a panda persona as properly.

You don’t even need to be a person of high-priced tastes to personal one, because it seems they’re listed on the market at simply $1,300!

I’d advise a little bit of warning there although. The final time I purchased an electrical mini-truck from China, it ended up costing over 4x the checklist worth to really land it in my driveway within the US. And that’s for those who may even get it into the nation – these items aren’t precisely street-legal within the US. In reality, they’re precisely not street-legal.

However hey, we are able to all nonetheless get pleasure from this one from afar, can’t we? And for our upmost enjoyment, we’ve nonetheless obtained the video under to soak all of it in!