EV-maker Eli launches its $11,900 electric micro ‘car’ in the US
Eli Electric, the manufacturer of the popular Eli ZERO electric microcar, announced this morning the opening of reservations in the US.
Microcars, often referred to as quadricycles in Europe and Low-Speed Vehicles (LSVs) or Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs) in the US, are a niche category designed largely for urban travel. Many new automakers in the category have failed to gain traction, often selling mere dozens of units.
But the Eli ZERO has so far proven popular in the markets it has already launched in across Europe and Asia, with hundreds of models already on the streets (did I mention the ‘niche’ thing?).
Now the pint-sized EV maker is bringing the Eli ZERO to the US, opening up $200 refundable deposits to reserve the $11,900 vehicle. Deliveries are expected to begin in Q3 2024, so it looks like reservation holders won’t have to wait very long.
The model heading stateside is an upgraded version designed to meet the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s regulations for LSVs, allowing it to be street-legal at the federal level. That permits owners to operate it like a traditional vehicle, but only on roads posted up to 35 mph (56 km/h). In other words, most roads in most cities.
Eli has now boosted its production capacity to 4,000 vehicles per year and will use a dealership model to sell and distribute its ZERO vehicles in the US.
As the company’s founder and CEO Marcus Li explained:
“Our goal is to transform urban trips, empowering riders to reconnect with their communities through compact and agile EVs that allow for a better utilization of urban space, reduced congestion, ease of parking and ultimately an improved quality of life in cities. Introducing the Eli ZERO to the U.S. market, we’re not only riding the wave of an emerging mobility revolution, but also redefining personal vehicles in an innovative way that benefits both traffic and the environment.”
The two-seater vehicle features a rather large battery, at least by LSV standards. The 8 kWh LiFePO4 battery for the European model is rated for up to 60 miles (100 km) of range, but the company announced that the US model will receive an even higher range of 90 miles (145 km), presumably meaning the vehicle will feature a larger battery.
The 3.2 kW on-board charger can recharge the vehicle in under three hours on 240VAC, or under 5 hours on 120VAC.
The top speed is limited to 25 mph (40 km/h) to comply with federal regulations for the vehicle class.
In addition to two fairly traditional car seats, there’s a 160L (5.6 cubic feet) trunk for storage in the rear. That’s not exactly a huge trunk, but it’s not a huge vehicle, either.
The length of the ZERO is just 88 inches, which is actually shorter than the width of a GMC HUMMER EV. Not only could it park nose-in within the same spot a HUMMER parallel parks in, but you could fit nearly four Eli ZEROs in that same parallel parking spot. Or to translate that into something that actually matters to most people, you could park a ZERO in that corner “not a spot” at the local grocery store, daycare, yoga studio, or wherever else driving an SUV would be overkill.
While the Eli ZERO is not technically a car, it still features many car-level features such as heat and A/C, keyless entry and start, power steering, anti-lock brakes, electronic parking brake, rearview camera, radar sensors for parking, tilting sunroof, and an optional Sony infotainment center with CarPlay and Android Auto.
That means that it feels and drives more like a traditional car, at least until you hit the 25 mph speed limiter.
In addition to the current list of features, the company says that ahead of the official launch later this year, it will announce several innovative new features that “will be a first in the LSV industry.”
Electrek’s Take
In my opinion, the proliferation of LSVs in the US can not come soon enough! While there are a few options, they’re still quite limited in number and variety.
These handy vehicles are exactly what this country needs: the antidote for an epidemic of oversized SUVs and ego-extenders. Not only are they more convenient to drive and park in cities than full-size vehicles, but if the old adage about big vehicles being used for “compensation” is true, then there’s no better wingman than rolling up in a tiny car like this.
I actually had a chance to take one of the first rides ever in the Eli Zero before it began sales back in late 2021 while visiting Italy. I was surprised to see just how roomy it felt inside despite the small footprint of the vehicle. I took a more recent test drive the next year along with the company’s founder Marcus Li, who explained to me that it’s the transparent door design that helps create that spacious illusion, removing the cramped feeling that many micro-cars suffer from.
The funny thing here is that I can already tell you what the detractors are going to say: that it’s an overpriced, glorified golf cart. And I can already tell you how hilariously wrong they are. First of all, it’s cheaper than average golf cart these days (if you don’t believe me, do a quick internet search for golf cart dealers in the US and look at the shocking prices). And secondly, this is way nicer than a golf cart, offering features like air conditioning, parking sensors, and keyless entry/starting.
Sure, it’s not going to meet the needs of a family of four taking their kids to a soccer game in the next town over, but it’s not meant to. It’s meant for folks who just need a one or two-seater and live in a city. I’d already have my name on the list if I was in the US more often (it wouldn’t be my first or even my second micro-EV I’ve had in the US). I mean, why not? I’d have all summer to think of a way to justify it to my wife!
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An aircraft alledgedly carrying US businessman Donald Trump Jr. arrives in Nuuk, Greenland on January 7, 2025.
Emil Stach | Afp | Getty Images
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump‘s pursuit to acquire Greenland could well be motivated by critical minerals, with mining executives and researchers describing the island’s massive resource potential as an “enormous opportunity.”
Trump’s years-long bid to take control of the world’s largest island has kicked into overdrive in recent weeks.
Ahead of his inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump said U.S. ownership of the autonomous Danish territory is an “absolute necessity” for purposes related to “national security and freedom throughout the world.”
Trump has since doubled down on those comments, refusing to rule out the use of military or economic force to make Greenland a part of the U.S.
Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Egede has told Trump that the Arctic island is “not for sale” and urged the international community to respect the territory’s aspirations for independence. Alongside Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Egede has also recently called for talks with Trump to resolve the situation.
Asked about Trump’s fixation on making Greenland a part of the U.S., the president-elect’s incoming national security advisor, Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., was unequivocal.
“This is about critical minerals. This is about natural resources,” Waltz told Fox News in an interview on Jan. 9.
“This is about reintroducing America in the Western Hemisphere,” Waltz said. “You can call it Monroe Doctrine 2.0, but this is all part of the ‘America First‘ agenda.”
Greenland is going to become more and more topical; it is going to become more and more front and center because of the climate change discussion, the critical metals discussion and the geopolitical discussion.
Roderick McIllree
Executive director of 80 Mile
Critical minerals refer to a subset of materials considered essential to the energy transition. These minerals, which tend to have a high risk of supply chain disruption, include metals such as copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt and rare earth elements.
Critical minerals and rare earth elements are vital components in emerging green technologies, such as wind turbines and electric vehicles, energy storage technologies and national security applications.
China is the undisputed leader of the critical minerals supply chain, accounting for roughly 60% of the world’s production of rare earth minerals and materials. U.S. officials have previously warned that this poses a strategic challenge amid the pivot to low-carbon energy sources.
In this aerial view melting icebergs crowd the Ilulissat Icefjord on July 16, 2024 near Ilulissat, Greenland.
Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Jakob Kløve Keiding, senior consultant at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), said a 2023 survey of Greenland’s resource potential evaluated a total of 38 raw materials on the island, the vast majority of which have a relatively high or moderate potential.
These materials include the rare earth metals graphite, niobium, platinum group metals, molybdenum, tantalum and titanium.
“Overall, we can say that there is a huge potential for critical raw materials [in Greenland],” Keiding told CNBC via telephone.
“Many of these are of great importance for the EU economy and, of course, it is not limited to just Europe. Many of these are also on the list of American [critical raw materials],” he added.
‘Greenland is not for sale’
Aaja Chemnitz, a Greenland member of the Danish parliament from the Inuit Ataqatigiit party, described Trump’s comments about Greenland as “disrespectful” and reaffirmed the prime minister’s message by saying the territory is not for sale.
“I’m not concerned. I think that some people in Greenland are quite concerned, but I think it is important for us to say that Greenland is not for sale, never has been for sale [and] never will be for sale,” Chemnitz told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro on Monday.
Chemnitz said Greenlandic lawmakers would need to have “clear and very specific goals on how to collaborate with the U.S.”
Closer ties between Greenland and the U.S. moving forward, for instance, could help to facilitate investment in the island’s mining industry, she added.
“If we look at extraction, for example, of rare earths. This is something that we have been willing to do for a very long time. We’ve been looking for American investors, [but] we haven’t found them, so they are quite welcome,” Chemnitz said.
The U.S. military maintains a permanent presence in northwest Greenland at the Pituffik Space Base, formerly known as Thule Air Base.
‘A race for what’s left’
Roderick McIllree, executive director of U.K.-based mining company 80 Mile, said he’s been working in Greenland for just over 20 years on projects ranging from resource discovery to feasibility.
“I think that what we’re seeing in Greenland is really a race for what’s left,” McIllree told CNBC via video call.
“A lot of independent state surveys are pointing to Greenland and its natural shelf boundaries as potentially hosting 20% to 25% of the last remaining extractable resources on the planet. Now, if that’s right, that’s an enormous opportunity for Greenland.”
The Old Colonial Harbour of Nuuk, Greenland is pictured on August 30, 2024. Greenland, an icy land whose rugged landscapes are bewitching, wants to attract more tourists, a paradox for a territory that is particularly vulnerable to global warming and whose geographical isolation means that many people have to take planes to get there.
James Brooks | Afp | Getty Images
80 Mile currently has three projects it is actively developing in Greenland, including a large oil concession on the island’s east coast, a titanium project near Pituffik in the northwest and its Disko-Nuussuaq project in the southwest.
Underlining the resource potential in the territory, McIllree said the firm’s Disko project could be one of the largest occurrences of nickel and copper on the planet.
“Greenland is going to become more and more topical; it is going to become more and more front and center because of the climate change discussion, the critical metals discussion and the geopolitical discussion. And its proximity to the U.S. really kind of makes it a natural jurisdiction for significant U.S. investment,” McIllree said.
“If Greenland play their cards right, this will lead to their independence,” he added.
‘Significant strategic interest’
In March last year, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen traveled to Nuuk, Greenland to inaugurate an EU office in the island’s capital.
The move, which came several months before Donald Trump Jnr.’s recent trip to the same city, was designed to firm up Europe’s presence in the territory as well as the broader Arctic region.
Von der Leyen announced two cooperation agreements totaling almost 94 million euros ($95.9 million) at the time, which she said would be used to invest in clean energy, critical raw materials and skills in Greenland.
(L-R) President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, Greenlandic Prime Minister Mute B Egede and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen sign an agreement on the opening of the European Commission’s new office in Nuuk, Greenland, on March 15, 2024.
Leiff Josefsen | Afp | Getty Images
“I’m a geologist by background and I know that Greenland is very well endowed with natural resources,” Paul Lusty, head of battery raw materials research at Fastmarkets, told CNBC via video call.
“There has been a lot of interest in rare earths in Greenland, for example, and clearly, they can be of significant strategic interest to the U.S.,” Lusty said.
Hot on the heels of Kia being added to Tesla’s “coming soon” page for Supercharger access, we’re now learning that Supercharger support won’t actually come nearly as soon as expected for Kia – with a delay of weeks or months before Kia owners can plug in at North America’s largest fast charging network.
Earlier today, Kia and several other brands were added to Tesla’s coming soon page, suggesting that access could be imminent.
This squared with a previous September announcement that access would come in January – with a planned date of January 15, just two days away from now.
But today, PC Magazine reported that Kia’s access will be delayed to sometime in Spring.
Specifically, Kia has updated a press release on its website which previously stated a launch date of January 15. The press release now says “Access to the DC fast chargers is planned for the first quarter of 2025.”
That means it could be any time in the next three months, assuming there are no further delays.
PC Magazine quoted James Bell, Kia’s head of PR, as stating that “a delay has occurred and we are working with the appropriate teams to confirm new availability/date.” We also reached out to Bell to see if we could get any more information, but hadn’t heard back as of press time.
It’s unclear whether this delay will affect other brands, like Hyundai and Genesis.
Kia and Hyundai (and Hyundai sub-brand Genesis) share a platform for their electric vehicles, and have been the first to offer vehicles with native NACS ports on 2025 models, as opposed to using adapters like all other brands have so far. Older Kia/Hyundai vehicles without a native NACS port will still be able to use an adapter once cars gain access to the network.
We reached out to Hyundai to find out whether they’ve been hit by the same delay, but haven’t heard back yet. We’ll update if we do.
In 2022, Tesla announced it would open its charging network, lured by big money promised in President Biden’s federal EV charging grants.
For a while it seemed like a bit of a hail mary, as many thought that most of the industry was already committed to the SAE CCS standard for fast charging.
But then, in 2023, Ford announced it would adopt Tesla’s “NACS” connector, and all the dominos started to fall. Soon enough, basically the entire industry had announced a shift to Tesla’s charging standard.
But these things take time, and the industry had to work on redesigning vehicles, building adapters, organizing software handshakes, and building out an official standard. Now, several brands can already use Superchargers, with more to come.
The rollout seemed to be slowing down for a time, after Tesla CEO Elon Musk abruptly fired the entire Supercharging team which had been responsible for successfully executing this coup that could see Tesla gaining a lasting lead in EV charging, with those firings causing total chaos and jeopardizing the transition.
Earlier today, when so many brands were added to the “coming soon” page, it seemed like perhaps the dust had settled on the chaotic charging situation caused my Musk’s instability. But perhaps this Kia news is indication that there’s still some trouble that needs to be worked through.
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The Biden administration awarded $635 million in EV charger grants just 10 days before Donald Trump takes office, leaving just $700,000 of the $2.5 billion from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law unallocated.
The grants from Biden’s zero-emission refueling infrastructure programs will fund 49 projects that will deploy more than 11,500 EV charging ports and alternative fuel infrastructure along corridors and in communities across 27 states, four federally recognized tribes, and the District of Columbia.
$368 million will be allocated for 42 projects that expand EV charging infrastructure within communities across the US, while $268 million will go toward seven projects that build out the national fast charging network along designated Alternative Fuel Corridors.
The grants, which were announced on Friday, are made possible through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s $2.5 billion Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Discretionary Grant Program and a 10% set-aside from the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program.
US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement, “These investments will help states and communities build out a network of EV chargers in the coming years so that one day, finding a charge on a road trip will be as easy as filling up at a gas station.”
There are currently nearly 70,000 public EV charging stations across the US, with over 197,000 charging ports, according to the DOE’s Alternative Fuels Data Center. The Biden administration set a goal of building out 500,000 publicly available EV chargers by 2030.
Since the election, the Biden administration has been rushing to distribute clean energy funding in response to Trump’s threats to claw it back. Once the funds are allocated, reclaiming them will be nearly impossible.
Read more: Wisconsin’s first 3 NEVI-funded EV fast charging stations are open
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