Weird Alibaba: Operate your own electric towing business with this tiny tow truck
It would give a whole new meaning to the term “small business” if you became the owner and operator of a towing company using this electric tow truck. That’s because despite getting with the times and swapping in an electric drivetrain, this tow truck is a bit on the diminutive side. Though there’s a good reason for that — mostly because it’s built for children.
But it’s just too awesome for me to pass up wanting to take my own ride in it! So fortunately for all of us, this little electric tow truck has won a highly coveted prize that it didn’t even know it was in the running for: a spot as this week’s Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week.
First of all, I love the fact that this product even exists.
Like, with all the little ride-on sports cars and off-road Jeeps and other wild or aggressive Powerwheels on the market, there would be kids out there that would rather clock in at 9 AM for a union job towing the other kids around when they break down.
Imagine if as the other neighborhood children were dressing up as Superman or Batman, your kid wanted to be a municipal waste worker for halloween. “Yea, those other kids in my class may think they’re heroes. But it’s the hard working men and women that keep this city’s waste moving orderly and systematically away from our curbs that are the real keepers of the peace.”
So good for you, kids that give up the flashy ride-on Corvette or Barbie’s Dream Car and instead have their hearts set on double clutching that four axle beast down to the rich part of town to pick up a stranded little Timmy when his ride-on Ferrari his parents got him Christmas throws a belt and can’t get service from the exotic powerwheels importer until Monday.
What? I’m not bitter.
And look, I’m not just drooling over this thing because it looks like it’d be fun to drive. I also love the features!
One of the coolest parts about it is that it’s not just a knock-off Powerwheels for your kids to drive around (or for you to “test out” first to make sure it’s safe). It’s also a giant RC car. It comes with a remote control and you can actually drive it around remotely!
Think about how funny it would be to leave that little detail out when you give it to your kids and then surprise them by taking over the controls while they’re behind the wheel. You could have your fun and teach them a valuable lesson about giving in to the convenience of connected technology despite the inherent hacking vulnerabilities that creates.
The real kicker here though is the price! At just $200, how can you not buy one of these? A dumb ride-on Silverado on Amazon costs more than this and can’t even tow anybody!
To be fair, the weak 12V system in this electric tow truck probably doesn’t have the most oomph either. It’s a far cry from a half ton truck. Hopefully it’s a half dozen pound truck, at least.
Oh, and can we all just appreciate that the little electric motorcycle on back is not only functional, but it’s also a rip-off of a BMW CE-04 electric scooter?
Let’s just hope that if one of my ill-guided readers does decide to get one of these things, that they share the details (and video) with us soon! Me? I’ll keep working on that electric boat I have on the way from Alibaba.
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EV sales kept up their momentum in December 2024, with incentives playing a big role, according to the latest Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book report.
December’s strong EV sales saw an average transaction price (ATP) of $55,544, which helped push the industry-wide ATP higher, according to Kelley Blue Book. The December ATP for an EV was higher year-over-year by 0.8%, slightly below the industry average, and higher month-over-month by 1.1%. Tesla ATPs were higher year-over-year by 10.5%.
Incentives for EVs remained elevated in December, although they were slightly lower month-over-month at 14.3% of ATP, down from 14.7% in November.
EV incentives were higher by an impressive 41% year-over-year and have been above 12% of ATP for six consecutive months. Strong sales incentives, which averaged more than $6,700 per sale in 2024, were one reason EV sales surpassed 1.3 million units last year, according to Cox Automotive, a new record for volume and share.
(My colleague Jameson Dow reported yesterday, “In 2024, the world sold 3.5 million more EVs than it did in the previous year … This increase is larger than the 3.2 million increase in EV sales from the previous year – meaning that EV sales aren’t just up, but that the rate of growth is itself increasing.”)
Kelley Blue Book estimated that in December, approximately 84,000 vehicles – or 5.6% of total sales – transacted at prices higher than $80,000 – the highest volume ever. KBB lumps gas cars and EVs together into this luxury vehicle category, so this is where Tesla Cybertruck is slotted.
However, Tesla bundles sales figures of Cybertruck with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi(!) into a category it calls “other models,” so we don’t know for sure exactly how many Cybertrucks Tesla sold in Q4, much less in December. However, Electrek‘s Fred Lambert estimates between 9,000 and 12,000 Cybertrucks were sold in Q4, and that’s not a stellar sales figure.
What will January bring when it comes to EV ATPs? What about tax credits? Check back in a month and I’ll fill you in.
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Tesla is now claiming that Cybertruck was the ‘best-selling electric pickup in US’ last year despite not even reporting the number of deliveries.
There’s a lot of context needed here.
As we often highlighted, Tesla is sadly one of, if not the most, opaque automakers regarding sales reports.
Tesla doesn’t break down sales per model or even region.
For comparison, here’s Ford’s Q4 2024 sales report compared to Tesla’s:
You could argue that Tesla has fewer models than Ford, and that’s true, but Tesla’s report literally has two lines despite having six different models.
There’s no reason not to offer a complete breakdown like all other automakers other than trying to make it hard to verify the health of each vehicle program.
This has been the case with the Cybertruck. Tesla is bundling its Cybertruck deliveries with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi deliveries.
Despite this lack of disclosure, Tesla has been able to claim that the Cybertruck has become “the best-selling electric pickup truck” in the US in 2024:
It very well might be true. Ford disclosed 33,510 F-150 Lightning truck deliveries in the US in 2024 while most estimates are putting Cybertruck deliveries at around 40,000 units.
Those are global deliveries, but Tesla only delivered the Cybertruck in the US, Canada, and Mexico in 2024, and most of the deliveries are believed to be in the US.
However, there’s essential context needed here, as we highlighted in our recent ‘Tesla Cybertruck sales are disastrous‘ article.
First off, Tesla had a backlog of over 1 million reservations for the Cybertruck that it has been building since 2019. This led many to believe Tesla already had years of demand baked in for the truck and that production would be the constraint.
However, based on estimates, again, because Tesla refuses to disclose the data, Cybertruck deliveries were either flat or down in Q4 versus Q3 despite Tesla introducing cheaper versions of the vehicle and ramping up production.
Again, that’s after just about 40,000 deliveries.
Furthermore, with almost 11,000 deliveries in Q4 in the US, Ford more likely than not outsold Cybertruck with the F-150 Lightning in Q4.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla is in damage control here. There’s no doubt that it is having issues selling the Cybertruck.
Inventory is full of Cybertrucks and Tesla is now discounting them and offering free lifetime Supercharging.
Tesla is great at ramping up production, and it’s clear the Cybertruck is not production-constrained anymore. It is demand-constrained despite having over 1 million reservations.
Again, those reservations were made before Tesla unveiled the production version, which happened to have less range and cost significantly more.
The upcoming cheaper single motor version should help with demand, but I have serious doubts Tesla can ramp this program up to more than 100,000 units in the US.
As a reminder, Tesla installed a production capacity of 250,000 units annually and Musk said he could see Tesla selling 500,000 Cybertrucks per year.
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