Barcelona’s groundbreaking electric scooter company Silence made a name for itself with revolutionary new swappable batteries with built-in trolley wheels. Now the company has brought those same game-changing batteries to four-wheelers as production begins for the Silence S04 micro-car.
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In Part 1 of this series titled “Everything you need to know about electric micro-cars, NEVs, LSVs, & golf carts,” we discussed the various categories of micro-cars, neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs), low-speed vehicles (LSVs), and golf carts. We also covered how these vehicles are becoming such popular car alternatives for so many people. Now in Part 2, we’ll dive into the important topic of what makes these vehicles street-legal for use on public roads.
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As American cars and trucks continue to bloat, growing longer and wider decade over decade while roads and parking spaces stay the same size, there may be hope glimmering on the horizon: tiny electric vehicles. I’m not talking about small cars. I’m talking about tiny ones – micro-cars, if you will.
They’re a small but growing category of motor vehicles in the US, and they may just save us from a future of massive, energy-guzzling vehicles that can somehow plow through a playground without noticing yet still struggle to wiggle into a parking spot.
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The AYRO Vanish has grabbed headlines over the past year as it rolls ever closer to production at AYRO’s Texas factory. Now the electric mini-truck’s final step ahead of manufacturing has begun as the Vanish starts street-legal homologation.
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In recent years, a surprising trend has begun gaining momentum across the US: Golf carts are being increasingly adopted as primary modes of transportation in communities, beach towns, and other areas. The traditional image of golf carts as mere mobility aides for silver-haired retirees to traverse the greens is shifting rapidly. If you’re skeptical, I can’t blame you. But the times are changing, so let’s dive deeper into why golf carts are making excellent car replacements for so many people.
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We’ve been eagerly following the AYRO Vanish since late last year, when the electric mobility company unveiled the mini-truck platform and touted its final assembly in AYRO’s Texas facility. Finally reaching a critical milestone, AYRO has just announced that the multi-use platform is now available for pre-order.
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Believe it or not, a stranger in China sent a massive shipping crate to my house with what supposedly contained an electric micro-car. What would happen next was far from an ordinary Tuesday.
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There’s been a lot of fuss about the supposed “$14,000 GM electric mini-truck” recently, but you probably shouldn’t get too worked up about it.
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The Round Rock, Texas-based EV company AYRO has begun exhibiting its AYRO Vanish utility vehicle ahead of its full-scale production commencement.
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Although Saab doesn’t make cars anymore, the company’s spirit is still alive and well. After going defunct in 2011, Saab’s automotive assets were sold to National Electric Vehicle Sweden. Under financial hardship, the company is now closing product development activities – however, not before a new secret electric sports car project called NEVS Emily GT was revealed.
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Electric microcars are a tricky to define subset of motor vehicles, especially in the US. Open-air neighborhood electric vehicles, fancy golf carts, and other small vehicles tend to blur the line, leaving microcars in that weird category of “I know it when I see it.” Now after recently test-driving one myself from the New York-based startup Wink Motors, now I definitely know it.
There are a few different street-legal microcar-style EVs in the US, but most take the form of golf cart-style buggies. Some are even actual golf carts that have been souped up with the required hardware to make them street legal. That leaves Wink as pretty much the only low-cost, car-like, and street-legal microcar in the US, at least for now.
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It’s true that prices for many leading full-size electric cars have dropped slightly in the last few months. But even a $50,000 Tesla is still much harder to afford than an electric micro-car that can cost a quarter of the price. Those smaller electric tiny cars, NEVs, and LSVs also come with big advantages over their full-size cousins, saving more than just cash.
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It’s not every day you get the chance to go for a few hot laps in a funky new electric mini-car. But when fate calls, you answer. And that’s just what I did recently on a trip to Milan when the Eli team nervously let me borrow their only prototype vehicle. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the Eli ZERO, but I came away excited about the future of these fun little runabouts.
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The Microlino is an electric bubble car, often referred to as microcars, that looks like a modern take on a classic BMW Isetta. Swiss mobility company Micro has spent the last few years working out the kinks in the innovative electric vehicle’s design and is now ready to begin production this spring.
With the production line nearly complete, the company is giving us our first look at how these unique little rides come together.
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The coronavirus has killed more than 1,000 people with a devastating international economic impact. After closing factories, Xpeng Motors, NIO, and eHang have resumed work on Monday. We asked Xpeng Motors to tell us what they are doing to ensure the health and safety of their staff and customers.
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The DryCycle technically isn’t really an electric car, even though it looks pretty car-like from the right angles (and when its bubble top is lowered). It’s more accurate to call it a fully enclosed, electric pedal-assisted quadricycle.
Evergrande, a Chinese firm believed to be the biggest real estate company in the world and backers of electric vehicle startups like Faraday Future and NEVS, announced a massive $23 billion investment in the production 1 million electric cars and 500 GWh of batteries per year.
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Supercar maker Koenigsegg announced that it is taking a $170 million investment from NEVS, SAAB’s all-electric successor, and the company says that they will use the money to ramp up their electrification effort.
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China’s Evergrande Group, best known in the EV community for having taken a large stake in Faraday Future, is now taking a majority stake in NEVS, SAAB’s all-electric successor.
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As we depart the Paris Mondial Motor Show, we’ve seen all matter of electric vehicles from Tesla and the big legacy carmakers, new ebikes that use new 2170 cells all the way down to Chinese scooters. But one big surprise was seeing the iconic Moke mini Jeep-like electric vehicles in not just one but two different booths in a variety of shapes and sizes, including a speedy, AWD version with…
NEVS has been accumulating some massive orders for its electric vehicles, but now one of the biggest orders to date has apparently fallen through as Didi reportedly pulls out of the project.
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National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS), the Chinese-backed successor of SAAB, has been closing multi-billion contracts to sell electric vehicles over the last year, but it didn’t have much to show for until now.
The automaker announced today that its first electric car rolled off the production line at its new Tianjin factory yesterday.
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SAAB successor National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) and DiDi Chuxing, China’s Uber, have signed an agreement to collaborate on making electric cars for DiDi’s highly popular ride-sharing network.
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Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL), a relatively new Chinese li-ion battery maker, is shaping up to become a major player in the industry in the coming years with plans for several important battery factories comparable in size to Tesla’s Gigafactory.
The company has now signed a supply contract with SAAB successor National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) in order for the electric vehicle maker to deliver on its orders for electric car fleets in China.
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