{"id":37479,"date":"2022-12-03T08:10:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-03T13:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=37479"},"modified":"2022-12-03T08:10:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-03T13:10:00","slug":"4-door-chinese-electric-pick-up-truck-off-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=37479","title":{"rendered":"Weird Alibaba: 4-door $4.5k Chinese electric pick-up truck for off-road adventures"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When most families go on safari, they rent a truck or pay a company for a guided tour. But with this cheap Chinese electric truck I find in the bowels of the internet, you could spend the same amount of money and get to keep your safari truck at the end! And lucky for us, this funky little e-truck is perfect for this week\u2019s Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week<\/a> column!<\/p>\n

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We\u2019re no stranger to mini electric pickup trucks. This series has featured fun little farm trucks<\/a>, hot pink Barbie trucks-come-to-life<\/a>, and even stubby little pickup trucks with a bed the size of a suitcase.<\/a><\/p>\n

But never before have we seen such an off-road ready mini electric truck, and that makes this week\u2019s feature<\/a> a special find.<\/p>\n

It already comes complete with front bash guard with fog lights, full length extended roof rack, rear mesh rack for protected storage, roof light bar, tubular doors, skid plate, and optional running boards (just in case you need help climbing up into a mini pickup truck).<\/p>\n

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The truck itself is setup as a four seater so you can take the whole family on safari, though there appears to be a two-seater variant as well for the non-breeders to enjoy their vacation in peace. <\/p>\n

It\u2019d be nice if this thing came as a 4\u00d74, but the electric motor mounted on the rear axle precludes it. Instead, you\u2019ve got yourself a rear wheel drive truck. The good news though is there\u2019s no driveshaft tunnel, meaning you\u2019ve got a flat floor throughout the entire cab.<\/p>\n

The motor isn\u2019t particularly impressive at just 4,000W, though like most Chinese EVs, that\u2019s a continuous power rating. Peak power is likely closer to 6,500W or around 8.7 hp. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s enough for the 45 km\/h (28 mph) top speed. You may not outrun any lions or charging rhinos, but at least you\u2019ll get a darn good last look at them through those open tubular doors!<\/p>\n

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For batteries, this truck rocks 72V 100Ah lead acid batteries. The first thing I\u2019d do if this were my truck would be to rip out that 7.2 kWh of century-old battery technology and toss in six new 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 bricks<\/a> to get some modern day battery technology.<\/p>\n

The vendor claims a range of 120 km (75 miles) with the original batteries, and I\u2019d wager that you\u2019d do slightly better with the lithium iron phosphate upgrade, since those batteries are much more tolerant of deep discharges. They\u2019ll also last a good 7-10x as long, so it\u2019s worth the upgrade.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got an electric boat on the way from Alibaba <\/a>and I\u2019ve already got those exact LiFePO4 bricks waiting in my garage to load up the hull with modern, safe energy storage.<\/p>\n

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The rest of the features on the truck are surprisingly good, especially considering the reasonable $4,500 purchase price. We\u2019re looking at rack-and-pinion steering, independent front suspension, aluminum wheels, electric windows, three-point seat belts, and even a front storage frunk.<\/p>\n

Of course this thing would never cost you just $4,500 in the end, considering you\u2019ve probably got a couple thousand bucks in freight charges, another grand or so in import duties, several hundred dollars in customs broker fees and port charges, etc. <\/p>\n

Then you\u2019re looking at the small problem of it not being even close to street legal in the US. There are a growing number of DOT-approved 25 mph (40 km\/h) mini EVs in the US<\/a> that qualify as road legal LSVs, (low speed vehicles), but this ain\u2019t one of them. There are even street-legal mini pickups in the US that look like what this is based on, though they cost around 4-6x this much<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If your main use is a safari trip though, street legal status might not be at the top of your priority list.<\/p>\n

\"chinese
How our graphics team thinks we\u2019d put this truck through its paces in the wild<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019m sorry to say that I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll be adding this one to my list of fun Alibaba purchases.<\/p>\n

I took a risk on buying an electric mini-truck from China<\/a> last summer and it actually went quite well. <\/a><\/p>\n

It was a gamble that I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ll be ready to roll the dice on again though, at least not any time soon.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been an awesome work truck for around my parents\u2019 ranch (it\u2019s another definitely not street-legal situation), though I\u2019ve had to make a few upgrades like adding off-road tires (which weren\u2019t on yet in the image below). <\/p>\n

While I wait for my electric pleasure boat to arrive on the slow boat from China, I\u2019ll ponder the missed opportunity of buying a bright orange mini safari truck. Maybe I\u2019ll regret it, but there\u2019s always next summer.<\/p>\n

\"Micah
Micah Toll\u2019s electric mini-truck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links.<\/em> More.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When most families go on safari, they rent a truck or pay a company for a guided tour. But with this cheap Chinese electric truck I find in the bowels of the internet, you could spend the same amount of money and get to keep your safari truck at the end! And lucky for us, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-cars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}