£3,400 Electric Car! Would you buy WULING'S MINI EV? | FULLY CHARGED CARS

So today I'm going to start off with a lot of superlatives. Cheapest EV in the world. Smallest EV in the world. Outselling Tesla. Of course it's this. We finally get a chance to test drive it today and I'm really, really excited. But does it live up to the hype? This is the Whirling Mini EV. And this is Fully Charged. Don't forget to subscribe and enter to be in the chance to win in our great EV giveaway. Where you could win one of four electric cars. So technically the full name of this car is the Whirling Hongguan Mini EV. And I'm really excited because we actually get to drive it here today for the first time. Now this is a collaboration between SAIC, GM, yes GM who make the massive trucks in America, and Whirling. And this car has outsold Tesla in April of this year about 5 to 1. So for every one Model 3 that was sold, they sold 5 of these. And it's not surprising why because the price of this starts at around 30,000 RMB. We'll flash up the conversion rates down at the bottom of the screen now. As you can see, it's not a lot of money. Now has this car lived up to the hype? Will it live up to the hype? Will it live up to people's expectations? We don't know. So let's take it for a little spin and find out more. So one of the best things about this car is just how uncomplicated the driving is. So I've just got in and driven straight away, no instructions. I know exactly where all the buttons are because it's what I've had in gas cars or ice cars for the past 20 or so years. And you just get in and go and drive. And it's very simple and straightforward. Interestingly, they've got an old school key. So again, they've really been thinking about how do we not overcomplicate it with some key fob system where you need to be close to the car and blah blah blah and it all goes wrong. Simple key, you plug in and twist it around just like a gas car or petrol car. So same with the handbrake, old school. This is old school, but with electric. And I think this could be a very interesting future for the cheap EV sector. If only more companies were thinking in this way about, OK, how can we cut costs but not make it such a miserable experience that no one actually wants to buy it. We're at the front end of the Wuling Mini EV. And as you can see, it's quite a boxy looking car. It doesn't have much in the way of features around here. But for this price, I think that's OK. Now, the one feature it does have on the front here is the charging port. And let me see if I can push that. Yeah, there you go. Unfortunately, it's only got a slow charger. So there's no fast charging fills on this. So if you are going a long distance, you're going to have to wait about six hours to charge it. You know, that could could be an issue. That's why it's perfect for a city runaround. Not much else to speak about on the outside here. So I just want to talk about the battery, which is sitting underneath this car. It comes in two flavours. One with a 9.2kWh battery, which does 120km of any DC range. And then you've got this one, which is 13.8kWh, which does 170km of any DC range. Not huge numbers. It'll get you around the city for a couple of days before you have to recharge it. I think that's fine. Interestingly, this is actually quite an efficient car. 8.1kWh per 100km. Which is probably a lot more efficient than my own car and many other electric cars on the market. So I've been driving around in the Wuling for a few hours now. And, you know, what comes to me is just how simple this car is. And that's not a bad thing, because I honestly think that a lot of the EVs that we're driving now are way too complicated. Too many things potentially to go wrong. And, you know, software and hardware can easily break down. With this, I've got a stop and go pedal. I've got some basic controls here. I do have a little screen up here telling my range and how many kilometres I've done, my drive mode and stuff. But that's it. That's basically all the tech is in there. No fancy maps, no complicated menus, nothing like that. So I think this has a lot going for it in terms of the tech side. If only a lot more cars could be offered just in this spec. You could have your fancy spec, but just have a basic one like this. Because if you want to get people to adopt these cars, if you want to get more people driving EVs, you just need to make them simpler, less complicated and cheaper. Now, I'm not spoilt for features in this car at all. And I think this is where the cheapness really comes in. A sea of plastic. It's only plastic in here. I've got plastic on the dash. I've got plastic down here. And I've got one of the most basic radars you will have ever seen. This is an LCD dial with two buttons, and that's it. Now, I've got some other buttons for the air conditioning over here, which I can turn on and off. A couple of other buttons over here. And I've got a traditional handbrake down here. So if I want to do some handbrake turns, I don't know why. It's rear wheel drive, so maybe. I've got that down here. No electric seats, no big touchscreen, nothing like that. You know, I can do my windows down here without having to look at a screen. I can adjust my seat without having to mess around with buttons. So what they've done by simplifying it is just make it so much better. So whilst this is not a feature-rich car, it's not devoid of features either. So there's a few little facts I want to show you about the rear of the car. First of all, it does have parking sensors. So when you're reversing, it beeps and tells you you're about to hit something. But to be honest, it's so small that you're likely just to look out the back window and actually look yourself. The other thing I want to talk about is the boot and the boot space. So let me just open this here. Just press this button. Now, I have a few issues with this boot. The first one is, yes, it's about the same height as me. So I have to duck down to actually get inside. Then obviously, it's quite high up here as well. There's literally no boot space. See, I've just hit my head. There's literally no boot space with the seats up. But if you've only got one friend and you don't have any friends in your back seats, you can push these down to get 741 litres of boot space. Now, I think I'm going to be able to do this just like that. And then you've got lots of boot space. It's actually quite practical. Now, the back seats are not too bad. We'll have a look on the inside and see how... I keep hitting my head. See how comfortable they are. But, you know, if you're in a small shop and you've got some shopping or bits and bobs, you can just chuck them in here if you're a little bit shorter than me. So I want to show you how difficult it perhaps is to get into the back seats. But once you're in there, it's actually not too bad. So I'm going to try and climb in now. So we've got a little button down here. This flips forwards. That's about it. I can move it forwards if I want. And then let's see if I can get in. There you go. Oh dear. So once I'm in, it's actually not too bad. I don't have gargantuan amounts of leg room. If I move my seat forwards a little bit, I've got a little window here. I've got no USB slots. I've got a little pocket here. I can see the back window and I can touch the back window. You know, this doesn't do a lot of range. But if you're just popping to the shops with your friends or dropping them off at the pub or something, you know, you could do it in this. And, you know, if you've got children, they would fit in here as well. So not too bad a place to be, but not a huge amount of features or leg room. So this is actually the second version of the car. There was the first version as well. They look identical. Basically, I think there's a few minor changes. But they've actually upgraded it slightly. So I think the first one, the very cheapest one, didn't have air conditioning or an airbag. They've obviously thought, well, I think people want a bit of air conditioning and some airbags. So this one has both. It's actually very efficient. I've already turned it on today. It's very hot today, about 30 degrees. And it's really, really efficient. It doesn't really drain the battery that much. I've still got plenty of juice left in the tank. Actually, this screen is pretty accurate in terms of the range. Usually any DC range is a little bit pie in the sky. But I think with this, because you're only doing city speeds, it's actually quite accurate. Even with the air conditioning on. So what do we think of the Wuling Mini EV? Well, I think this is a fantastic car for EV adoption. If people are going to be driving EVs, if they're going to accept these cars, they have to get into cars like these first. It's very cheap. It's fairly practical. It's probably going to be quite reliable. It gets the job done at a very, very low price. And that's what I think we need in the market. For people to jump into cars like these, have that electric experience, and then maybe they can encourage their friends to get an electric car as well. That's why I think this car is so significant. Do I think it needs some refinement and improvement? Yes. There's too much plastic in here. I think it could do with some more sustainable materials. Maybe they can use some bamboo or something like that. In terms of the feeling of the drive, it's a little bit boring. But it gets the job done. In a city like Shanghai, you're not going more than 40 kilometres an hour anyway. So, I mean, that's all we've had time for. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Wuling Mini EV. We've got plenty more episodes coming from China in the coming weeks and months. We've got all the subscribe buttons, all that lovely stuff around this video, including Patreon, YouTube memberships, the notification bell. Click on all of those, subscribe, you know, like it. And if you have been, thank you for watching.