No, you shouldn’t get too excited about GM’s $14,000 electric mini-truck. Here’s why
There’s been a lot of fuss about the supposed “$14,000 GM electric mini-truck” recently, but you probably shouldn’t get too worked up about it.
That’s not to say that electric mini-trucks aren’t an exciting new field. I’m a proud owner of one and I love the thing. Mini-trucks, and especially electric mini-trucks, are incredibly useful and highly efficient machines. Though the best part about these fun little utility vehicles is likely their low prices compared to pricier electric pickup trucks.
The most recent model making headlines, the GM-backed Baojun Yep EV, even offers some fairly respectable performance numbers. Despite being smaller than a tiny Fiat 500 subcompact city car, it features a 50 kw (67 horsepower) electric motor, a top speed of 100 km/h (62 mph) and a city range of nearly 300 km (188 miles) per charge.
Obviously it’s not meant to tow a Boston Whaler down the highway. But for around-the-town jobs it’d be plenty.
Just don’t start taking out your checkbook when you hear about many of the new mini e-truck models swirling around in the news. That’s because you can’t have one. Here’s why.
Most of the time these stories are misleading for a few reasons. Take the US $14,000 GM mini-truck above, for example. First of all, it’s not a GM model. And second of all, it doesn’t cost US $14,000. The entire premise is a lie.
That vehicle, the Baojun Yep EV, is technically “GM-backed” thanks to a joint venture between General Motors and the two state-owned Chinese automotive companies SAIC Motor and Liuzhou Wuling Motors. But GM is a minority owner in the deal. It’s less of a GM vehicle and more a partially paid for by GM vehicle.
Next, it doesn’t really cost US $14,000. First of all, no one knows what the price tag will be for the Baojun Yepp EV truck when it eventually launches. It is based on a similar SUV-format vehicle that itself has only been estimated to launch at 100,000 Chinese Yuan later this summer.
Sure, ¥100,000 is approximately equal to US $14,000 at current exchange rates. But that doesn’t make this a US $14,000 vehicle. As anyone who reads my long-running weekly column Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week will already know, Chinese vehicle prices don’t translate very well into US prices.
The only way you could buy one of these vehicles for approximately US $14k is if you did it in China. Which is what I did, once. A couple summers ago I paid a Chinese factory US $2,000 for a much lower spec (5 horsepower, 25 mph) electric mini-truck.
By the time it was all said and done, I had paid an additional US $6,000 or so in freight charges, import duties, US taxes and tariffs, US customs fees, trucking and other expenses to get it into my family’s driveway in Florida.
I did the same thing with a five-seater electric boat. I paid the factory in China US $1,080 but wound up with around a US $4,500 lighter bank account by the time the boat slipped into a Florida pond.
And that was for a private import. Imagine if I was a company trying to turn a profit on these things. That US $2,000 Chinese mini-truck could easily turn into a US $12,000 or more mini-truck, stateside. And that’s a comparatively low-spec vehicle.
The same goes for other popular electric microcars from China. We often hear about the “$5,000 Wuling Mini EV” electric micro-car, which is a vehicle that frequently gets tossed around my comment section whenever I write about an electric bike that costs over US $5,000.
But don’t be fooled into thinking that’s a US $5,000 car. It’s not. It’s a ¥30,000 car.
Sure, if you flew to China with five grand in your pocket, converted it to Chinese Yuan at the airport, and then walked into a Wuling dealership, you could probably drive out a few hours later in a shiny new micro-car. But you aren’t going to do that, are you?
Instead, you would need an enterprising importer to bring a literal boatload of them to the US (or wherever you live), somehow get them homologated for federal motor vehicle safety standards, then sell one to you. If you got out of that transaction for under US $15,000, you’d be extremely lucky (consider that a new golf cart in North America can easily US $10,000). And you’d still have a tiny 25 mph (de-regulated to US LSV laws) Chinese car for the price of a cheap highway capable vehicle in the US.
This isn’t to say that electric mini-trucks don’t exist in the US. There are street legal electric mini-truck manufacturers like the Texas-based startup AYRO, though they’re still getting rolling with upcoming production. Plus, the starting prices are closer to $25,000, which is a bit higher than those domestic market Chinese electric mini-trucks.
There are also a few more or less scrupulous importers of Chinese electric mini-trucks, though almost none are street legal, even if the shadier importers claim them to be.
But for the most start, the few real options are the pricier models from real US manufacturers.
Maybe things will change. As electric mini-trucks grow in popularity, perhaps more companies will enter the fray and prices will come down. Or perhaps Chinese models will actually be homologated and imported to the US at reasonable prices. Either would be great news considering the ballooning size of US trucks and SUVs that contribute to climbing road deaths, greater emissions and increased road wear. But for now, there’s no point in getting excited over misleading claims of cheap electric trucks. They simply don’t exist yet, unfortunately.
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Environment
Uber launches true driverless robotaxi operations in the Middle East with WeRide [Video]
![Uber launches true driverless robotaxi operations in the Middle East with WeRide [Video]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/11/Uber-Middle-East-WeRide.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Just over a year after Uber announced a strategic partnership in the Middle East with autonomous vehicle specialist WeRide, the companies have officially begun offering the public robotaxi rides without a driver or safety operator present on board.
Today’s latest milestone involving robotaxi operations in the Middle East dates back to September 2024, when Uber and WeRide initially announced a strategic partnership to bring autonomous rides to the UAE.
Three months later, the partner officially launched autonomous rides in Abu Dhabi, but with a safety operator present in the vehicle. At the time, Uber and WeRide said the supervised rides were “laying the groundwork” for a true driverless commercial operations planned for 2025.
That day has come.
WeRide and Uber have confirmed that commercial robotaxi operations are officially underway in Abu Dhabi without any safety operators on board – a first for the Middle East.
Uber rolls out Middle East robotaxi operations in Abu Dhabi
Uber shared details of its latest milestone late this evening or in the afternoon in the Middle East, depending on where you are.
Beginning today (Wednesday) customers in Abu Dhabi can select an UberX or Uber Comfort ride that enables them to be matched with a fully autonomous WeRide robotaxi without a driver inside. Riders in the Middle East can also increase their chances of hailing one of these driverless rides by select the “Autonomous” option in the Uber app.
In order to qualify, the prosepctive rider’s route must be part of WeRide’s operating territory in Abu Dhabi and a dedicated WeRide GXR Robotaxi vehicle (seen in the featured image above) must be available.
Similar to Uber’s partnership with Waymo in Austin and Atlanta, the global rideshare network will oversee fleet operations for WeRide vehicles, handling end-to end rider support. It has tapped Tawasul Transport to facilitate vehicle cleaning, maintenance, inspections, charging, and depot management. WeRide will remain responsible for vehicle testing.
As you may recall last spring, Uber and WeRide announced an expansion to their strategic partnership beyond the Middle East (although Dubai will be the city for its next robotaxi rollout). Over the next five years, Uber and WeRide intend to deploy true driverless public rides in 15 additional cities, some of which will be in Europe.
As promised, here’s some b-roll footage from Uber showing how riders in Abu Dhabi can order a WeRide robotaxi:
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Metro Detroit is about to get a big boost of fast EV chargers, with more than 40 new ChargePoint ports set to come online across multiple sites owned by the Dabaja Brothers Development Group.
The first ultra-fast charging site just opened in Canton, Michigan. It’s owned and operated by Dabaja Brothers, who plan to follow it with additional ChargePoint-equipped locations in Dearborn and Livonia.
“We started this project because we saw a gap in our community – there was almost nowhere to charge an EV in Canton, and a similar lack of charging across metro Detroit,” said Yousef Dabaja, owner/operator at Dabaja Brothers.
Each metro Detroit site will feature ChargePoint Express Plus fast charging stations, which can deliver up to 500 kW to a single port, can fast-charge two vehicles at the same time, and are compatible with all EVs. The stations feature a proprietary cooling system to deliver peak charging speeds for sustained periods, ensuring that charging speed remains consistent.
The stations operate on the new ChargePoint Platform, which enables operators to monitor performance, adjust pricing, troubleshoot issues, and gain real-time insights to keep chargers running smoothly.
Rick Wilmer, CEO at ChargePoint, said, “This initiative will rapidly infill the ‘fast charging deserts’ across the Detroit area, allowing drivers to quickly recharge their vehicles when and where they need to.”
Read more: ChargePoint just gave its EV charging software a major AI upgrade
If you’re looking to replace your old HVAC equipment, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you’re finding a trusted, reliable HVAC installer near you that offers competitive pricing on heat pumps, check out EnergySage. EnergySage is a free service that makes it easy for you to get a heat pump. They have pre-vetted heat pump installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high quality solutions. Plus, it’s free to use!
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Mercedes-Benz High-Power Charging and Starbucks have officially opened their first DC fast charging hub together, off the I-5 in Red Bluff, California.
The 400 kW Mercedes-Benz chargers are capable of adding up to 300 miles in 10 minutes, depending on the EV, and every stall has both NACS and CCS cables – they’re fully open DC fast chargers.
Mercedes-Benz HPC North America, a joint venture between subsidiaries of Mercedes-Benz Group and renewable energy producer MN8 Energy, first announced in July 2024 that it would install DC fast chargers at Starbucks stores along Interstate 5, the main 1,400-mile north-south interstate highway on the US West Coast from Canada to Mexico. Ultimately, Mercedes plans to install fast chargers at 100 Starbucks stores across the US.
Mercedes-Benz HPC opened its first North American charging site at Mercedes-Benz USA’s headquarters in Sandy Springs, Georgia, in November 2023 as part of an initial $1 billion charging network investment. As of the end of 2024, Mercedes had deployed over 150 operational fast chargers in the US, but it hasn’t disclosed an official number of how many chargers are currently online.
Andrew Cornelia, CEO of Mercedes-Benz HPC North America, is leaving the company at the end of the month to become global head of electrification & sustainability at Uber.
Read more: Mercedes-Benz is deploying 400 kW US-made EV fast chargers with CCS and NACS cables
If you’re looking to replace your old HVAC equipment, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you’re finding a trusted, reliable HVAC installer near you that offers competitive pricing on heat pumps, check out EnergySage. EnergySage is a free service that makes it easy for you to get a heat pump. They have pre-vetted heat pump installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high quality solutions. Plus, it’s free to use!
Your personalized heat pump quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here. – *ad
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