Complete list of the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicles of the Week

I was recently in China on yet another trip to tour the factories and showrooms of several leading micromobility companies, and I’ll have more to share with you on that trip soon. But first, while I was getting ready to fly out of the Shanghai airport, I stumbled upon the coolest little motorized carry-on suitcase that functions like a seated electric scooter. I ended up buying it on the spot.

Here’s what happened next when I tried to take it 8,000 km (5,000 miles) home.

I’ve got a bit of a reputation for testing out some of the wildest, strangest, and most interesting non-car electric vehicles on the internet. In order to find many of these far-fetched electric steeds, all I have to do is pop open a few (dozen) Alibaba tabs in my browser and start window shopping through the world’s largest repository of creative EV engineering. That’s exactly how I found this week’s focus: a surprisingly fast and fun-looking suitcase that you can giddy-up and ride till the wheels fall off, which they very well might.

As I peruse Alibaba for all sorts of fun and interesting electric vehicles, I often stumble across seemingly outlandish products that often have a real use case behind them. The best of those make it into the recurring Awesome Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column, and that’s precisely where this man-carrying drone lands today.

They say there’s no better test of a relationship than riding a tandem bike with your partner. But I propose that whoever penned that axiom never tried the go-kart equivalent. Who’s ready to step right up and pop a squat into this dual-steering wheel go-kart for some around-the-track fun with your better half?!

I’m no stranger to collecting weird Alibaba electric vehicles, and that includes aquatic vessels. But after buying an ultra-cheap Chinese electric boat last year, this new one makes my own lazy lake cruiser look like a luxury yacht.

When I first got into flying quadcopters (back when they were still called quadcopters), I would sometimes imagine what it would be like to shrink myself down Rick Moranis-style and hop aboard. But now thanks to some enterprising Chinese engineers – or perhaps garage tinkerers – I don’t have to imagine it anymore. Instead of shrinking the passengers down, they’ve scaled up the entire drone and added a pilot’s chair.

Now the only question is, how brave are you?

Remember how the Bluth family drove that airplane staircase truck in the TV series Arrested Development? My apologies if not, since that’s a bit critical to the lead image gag above. But either way, you can surely appreciate how ridiculous it would be to actually own and drive one of those as a real vehicle. And now thanks to Alibaba, you might not have to purely imagine it anymore.

Ah yes, good ol’ Alibaba. It’s the place to go whenever you want to see just how weird and wild the world of Chinese electric vehicles has become. It’s all fun and games to laugh and enjoy the weirdness, though it’s important to remember that China actually leads the world in real electric vehicles, too. But we’re not here for those boring things. We’re here to see a full-size bug-eyed electric bus shaped like a fish, and at the cost of a couple car payments in the US.

I’m not sure if you could really call it a legit SUV, but these fun-looking little Chinese electric vehicles might just be an interesting alternative to the car bloat clogging the streets of cities around the world.

Oh, and they make an excellent entry for this week’s Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week.

Panning for gold in Alibaba’s electric vehicle catalog is bound to find some real doozies, such as this week’s Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week. Meet this fun little purple three-wheeled electric car that barely manages to fulfill the requirements of a car.

There are precious few things that car drivers and cyclists can agree upon when it comes to cities, but one universal concept seems to be the hatred of massive box trucks clogging up streets and bike lanes. Could this miniature version of a box truck built on a golf cart frame be the answer?

This one style of vehicle is known by many names. In India, it’s an auto rickshaw. In Thailand, a tuk-tuk (a fun onomatopoeia that arose from the traditionally loud two-stroke engines powering them). But whatever it’s called, these three-wheeled taxis have used their half-bike, half-wagon design to shuttle folks around cities for decades. And now, a new era of rickshaws is seeing electric drives enabling interesting new designs.

Have you ever been in the mood to drive an electric bus, and then thought to yourself, “the only thing that could make this better is if the bus was shaped like a marsupial”? Yea, me neither. At least not until I stumbled upon this precious specimen of a koala bus.

When I first coined the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column nearly three years ago, this was precisely the type of thing I had in mind. Searching for all of the coolest and wildest electric vehicles from China’s largest online shopping site has finally landed me on the one I think I want the most right now: a chair that also happens to be an electric tank.

It’s a situation we’ve probably all experienced before: you’re riding your e-bike and thinking to yourself, “This is nice, but you know what could make this bike even better? Tank tracks!”

Well now there’s an easy way to do it in the form of a conversion kit that takes an e-bike and turns it into something of a snowmobile with the inclusion of a snow track kit.

Remember that time someone in China sent me a free panda car? Well after cruisin’ for another proverbial bruisin’ in the Alibaba electric car catalog, I stumbled upon a variant of it that seems to have a truck’s rear end tacked on the back. It’s silly and fun and just oh-so-perfect.

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

One of my favorite parts of perusing Alibaba for fun and outlandish electric vehicles is seeing just how creative the designers can become. In this case, I’ve found what looks like a mini-minivan that took an extra spin or two around the window factory before emerging complete.

I’m admittedly more of a two-wheeled kind of guy, owning and riding just about every type of electric bike, scooter, and e-motorcycle out there. But I’ve always thought that the thing that could get me to buy an electric car would be a short little electric roadster – something like an e-Miata. After browsing through Alibaba recently, I thought I had finally found my muse. At least, until I dug a little deeper.

Most of the fun electric vehicles I discover in the depths of Alibaba require me to sit in, on, or around them. But this time, I’ve found something that barely even needs me involved. Check out this awesome electric hand truck that can climb stairs thanks to its nifty tank track operation!

When it comes to searching for odd vehicles on China’s largest online shopping site, I try not to limit myself too much. Sure it’s fun to find various things that zip around on wheels, treads, wings, or fins. But sometimes, you have to expand your horizon beyond just air, land, and sea. That’s the case with this week’s find for the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week. Meet the awesome human-powered backyard rollercoaster!

There’s something about pint-sized vehicles that just gets me going. Anyone can have a van. But what about a van that looks like it went through the washing machine on diaper setting and then a few extra trips around the dryer? Now we’re talking!

Check out what I believe to be the unconfirmed reigning world’s tiniest electric delivery van.