Bespoke British sports car manufacturer RBW EV Cars breaks ground on new US facility
A relatively young, handcrafted British EV automaker, RBW EV Cars, is celebrating an $8 million milestone as it expands its vehicle production to North America to deliver its two flagship models to US consumers. These bespoke BEVs with British design heritage in mind look like they are extremely fun to zip around in. See more below.
RBW Electric Cars was founded in 2017 by Peter Swain, who spun the business out from his restoration company RBW Classic & Sports Cars after seeing the potential of EVs with modern technology designed within a classic car aesthetic.
Swain then established a cooperation with Continental Engineering Services (CES), which helped develop and build a “proof of concept” for BEV. One year later, RBW launched its first prototype, which was followed by a driving sampler in 2019 before the start of production of RBW’s first EV, the Roadster, in Britain in February 2020.
By January 2022, RBW had delivered its first Roadster EV to a UK client before securing an investment to scale its production processes in the summer of 2023. That following fall, RBW opened its new UK EV factory before officially launching its second model, the RBW GT, in December 2023.
Now, RBW Electric Cars is moving across the pond, making good on plans announced a year ago to establish a second hub to operate and build in the US to provide BEVs for consumers in North America.
RBW EVs breaks ground on US production site in Virginia
Per an update from RBW EV Cars today, it has officially broken ground on its new US production facility, lo9cated in Danville, Virginia. Today’s milestone follows an update in late 2024 that RBW had secured a deal with the state to build its new $8 million state-of-the-art production facility.
When complete, the 29,000-square-foot US hub in the rendering above will be home to RBW’s EV assembly, sales, and marketing operations. It will also be the new home to the entire team at Spirit EV, which developed and provides the turnkey EV powertrain solutions used in both the Roadster and GT models. Swain spoke about RBW’s latest milestone and its collaboration with Spirit EV:
RBW EV Cars has dedicated nearly a decade to developing bespoke electric vehicles that honor classic British design while delivering cutting-edge electrification. From the beginning of its operation, the company has been focused on bringing a global EV platform to market that could transcend how automakers design and engineer their own platforms. This is where Spirit EV comes in. We will now have R&D facilities in both the UK and US.
According to RBW EV Cars, its US operations will be led by former NASCAR driver and Danville native Peyton Sellers. Sellers will oversee the production of the UK automaker’s left-hand drive versions of the Roadster and GT EVs, both of which are currently scheduled to see only 50 US deliveries each in 2025.
Both RBW EV models deliver up to 150 miles of estimated range, a top (limited) speed of 90 mph, and can accelerate from 0-60 mph in 8 seconds. Brand new, built examples of the Roadster start at £108,000 ($143,00) in the UK. We don’t have US pricing yet, but RBW did share plans to unveil “additional product development initiatives and future vehicle lines” this coming fall.
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If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you combine a fruit cart, a cargo bike, and a Piaggio Ape all in one vehicle, now you’ve got your answer. I submit, for your approval, this week’s feature for the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column – and it’s a beautiful doozie.
Feast your eyes on this salad slinging, coleslaw cruising, tuber taxiing produce chariot!
I think this electric vegetable trike might finally scratch the itch long felt by many of my readers. It seems every time I cover an electric trike, even the really cool ones, I always get commenters poo-poo-ing it for having two wheels in the rear instead of two wheels in the front. Well, here you go, folks!
Designed with two front wheels for maximum stability, this trike keeps your cucumbers in check through every corner. Because trust me, you don’t want to hit a pothole and suddenly be juggling peaches like you’re in Cirque du Soleil: Farmers Market Edition.
To avoid the extra cost of designing a linked steering system for a pair of front wheels, the engineers who brought this salad shuttle to life simply side-stepped that complexity altogether by steering the entire fixed front end. I’ve got articulating electric tractors that steer like this, and so if it works for a several-ton work machine, it should work for a couple hundred pounds of cargo bike.
Featuring a giant cargo bed up front with four cascading fruit baskets set up for roadside sales, this cargo bike is something of a blank slate. Sure, you could monetize grandma’s vegetable garden, or you could fill it with your own ideas and concoctions. Our exceedingly talented graphics wizard sees it as the perfect coffee and pastry e-bike for my new startup, The Handlebarista, and I’m not one to argue. Basically, the sky is the limit with a blank slate bike like this!
Sure, the quality doesn’t quite match something like a fancy Tern cargo bike. The rim brakes aren’t exactly confidence-inspiring, but at least there are three of them. And if they should all give out, or just not quite slow you down enough to avoid that quickly approaching brick wall, then at least you’ve got a couple hundred pounds of tomatoes as a tasty crumple zone.
The electrical system does seem a bit underpowered. With a 36V battery and a 250W motor, I don’t know if one-third of a horsepower is enough to haul a full load to the local farmer’s market. But I guess if the weight is a bit much for the little motor, you could always do some snacking along the way. On the other hand, all the pictures seem to show a non-electric version. So if this cart is presumably mobile on pedal power alone, then that extra motor assist, however small, is going to feel like a very welcome guest.
The $950 price is presumably for the electric version, since that’s what’s in the title of the listing, though I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. I’ve bought a LOT of stuff on Alibaba, including many electric vehicles, and the too-good-to-be-true price is always exactly that. In my experience, you can multiply the Alibaba price by 3-4x to get the actual landed price for things like these. Even so, $3,000-$4,000 wouldn’t be a terrible price, considering a lot of electric trikes stateside already cost that much and don’t even come with a quad-set of vegetable baskets on board!
I should also put my normal caveat in here about not actually buying one of these. Please, please don’t try to buy one of these awesome cargo e-trikes. This is a silly, tongue-in-cheek weekend column where I scour the ever-entertaining underbelly of China’s massive e-commerce site Alibaba in search of fun, quirky, and just plain awesomely weird electric vehicles. While I’ve successfully bought several fun things on the platform, I’ve also gotten scammed more than once, so this is not for the timid or the tight-budgeted among us.
That isn’t to say that some of my more stubborn readers haven’t followed in my footsteps before, ignoring my advice and setting out on their own wild journey. But please don’t be the one who risks it all and gets nothing in return. Don’t say I didn’t warn you; this is the warning.
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Environment
Podcast: Trump/GOP go after EV/solar, Tesla, Ford, GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Trump’s Big Beautiful bill becoming law and going after EVs and solar, Tesla, Ford, and GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
Today’s episode is brought to you by Bosch Mobility Aftermarket—A global leader and trusted provider of automotive aftermarket parts. To celebrate Amazon Prime Day July 8th through 11th, Bosch Mobility is offering exclusive savings on must-have auto parts and tools. Learn more here.
The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.
As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.
After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:
We now have a Patreon if you want to help us avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.
Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:
- Electrek FSGP 2025: New teams, new cars, same solar spirit
- Congress votes to send 2 million US jobs to China, increase deficit, energy costs
- Tesla (TSLA) confirms 384,000 deliveries in Q2 2025, right on expectations
- Tesla prototype sparks speculation: a Model Y, maybe slightly smaller
- Tesla launches Oasis Supercharger with solar farm and off-grid batteries
- Tesla unveils its LFP battery factory, claims it’s almost ready
- Here’s why Ford’s electric vehicle sales crashed by nearly a third in Q2
- The Chevy Equinox EV is GM’s breakout star, but that’s not the only surprise
- Xpeng launches G7, a new Tesla Model Y competitor for just $27,000
Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET:
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