While Elon Musk is once again distancing himself from the idea of a $25,000 Teslalet's take this opportunity to zoom out and appreciate what a really affordable EV can be. For this we need the Nissan Leaf– currently the cheapest electric car in the US at $29,280 – and skip Europe, home of the cute but flawed $10,000 Lemon Amiand go to China.
Here you will find the equally cheap ones BYD Seagulla small electric hatchback, designed by ex-Lamborghini designer Wolfgang Egger and with a range of 320 kilometersfour times that of the Ami.
But what if even that is too expensive? Then allow us to… Zhidou Rainbow. This is a compact city EV priced from 31,900 yuan (excluding subsidies) – that's just $4,400. For a new electric car. WIRED literally recommends e-bikes that costs more than this.
The Rainbow has three doors and four seats, and an interior with a 5-inch digital driver display and a 9-inch touchscreen for the infotainment system. There's even a connected smartphone app, charging scheduling and the promise of over-the-air (OTA) software updates.
Enjoy the flagship Color Cloud Edition (which costs $5,800, or about half the price of Porsche's fanciest bike) and you can have every panel of your Rainbow painted a different color. A bit like Volkswagen did with the slightly crazy one Harlequin Polo mid-1990s.
Cheaper than an e-bike
Two models are offered. The first has a price tag of $4,400 and is powered by a 20 kW (27 hp) motor with 85 Nm (63 ft-lbs) of torque and powered by a small 9.98 kWh battery. If you spend 39,900 yuan ($5,500), your Rainbow comes equipped with a 30 kW (40 hp) motor with 125 Nm of torque and a 17 kWh battery pack. The range is between 120 and 200 kilometers according to the generous Chinese CLTC test standard.
Don't be under any illusions: these are small numbers. Even the larger battery has the same capacity as that of a plug-in hybrid Honda CR-V, which also uses a 2.0-liter engine to help it get around. But the reach is not horrible. Even if the testing standard is generous and the larger battery has a more realistic range of 100 miles, that's about the same as the Honda e, which cost a whopping £37,000 ($46,000) before going on sale at the end of 2023.