This guy bought a wild standing electric ATV from China – here’s what showed up
For those who have had the pleasure of discovering my weekly column on weird electric vehicles from China (or for those with a less robust sense of humor who have had the displeasure of finding it), you’ll know I love trawling through Alibaba’s long list of wacky electric vehicles. I often find some real nuggets of treasure, and sometimes I even go as far as buying and importing them to the US.
Make no mistake: It’s a terrible idea that is fraught with problems. That’s why I always advise against my readers following my lead. But sometimes, just sometimes, some of you foolhardy folks will climb up and over all of my disclaimers to try your own hands at getting the weirdest wheeled vehicles that China can muster.
That’s the case with one Kentucky man who was inspired by my own ill-advised shenanigans and decided to try his hand at a bad idea that ultimately worked out quite well.
I’ll call him Hector, because that’s his name, and he said I could use it. Hector liked the standing electric ATV that I covered in an article last year and fancied the idea of one day having his own. But instead of leaving it at that, he was bitten by the same Alibaba bug as me and sought out a way to make it happen.
And I don’t blame him. This thing looks pretty awesome on paper. It’s an all-wheel-drive design with 6,000 watts of power, full-suspension, and the ability to add a pile of accessories. The top speed of 60 km/h (37 mph) is likely fast enough for most riders, as I’m not sure many people want to involuntarily dismount going any fast than that, in the unlikely event that something goes wrong on a ride.
The design is so cool because it’s not exactly original. In fact, it’s pretty much a rip-off of the Israeli-designed off-road vehicle known as the DSRaider. It’s not quite as rugged, but it’s much cheaper.
Priced at $4,000, the Chinese version is significantly more affordable than the original, which is often used by military and police units in various parts of the world.
Hector messaged the vendor, Zhejiang LVDU Industry & Trade corporation, and resisted their attempts to receive payment for the ATV by wire transfer, which can be problematic if there’s ever an issue with the vehicle or its delivery.
“I contacted them to get the vehicle specs, and they suggested a wire transfer payment that I declined,” explained Hector. “They returned and offered to do it through Alibaba, and I accepted.”
Alibaba’s internal payment platform is safer than a wire transfer since Alibaba offers some marginal buyer protections, though many vendors won’t use it because it delays their ability to receive the funds.
From there, Hector began choosing his desired accessories. “I added some accessories for the vehicle, such as bigger tires, a basket, a beacon light post, and a vertical rack for cargo,” he continued.
The accessories added up to US $322, and the factory threw in a seat for free.
The seller offered Hector a shipping option under terms known as DDP, or Delivered Duty Paid. This is one of many forms of international freight agreements, and it means that the seller is responsible for everything required to get the product to the customer’s door. That means importing, customs clearance, customs fees, trucking to final destination, etc. The charge for DDP was US $1,295. After the added taxes (yes, Alibaba is required by law to collect US sales tax on purchases from Americans), the total that Hector paid came out to US $6,094.29. In theory, the DDP terms mean that this should be the final payment, and everything else should be handled by the shipper.
Hector submitted the payment through Alibaba’s payment platform, which provides some level of buyer protection through escrow (though I’ve still been screwed in the past anyway). That payment started the production of Hector’s new electric ATV, and the factory came back to him with the proof-of-life pictures below.
So far, so good.
The next step was local shipping. The electric ATV had to be packaged up for its journey and sent to a freight forwarder.
The factory took care of these steps, updating Hector along the way.
Hector then received the images below, showing how the ATV was packaged and loaded into a truck to be taken to a freight forwarder for containerization.
The factory created a steel shipping cage for the vehicle and then covered it in a cardboard exterior. This is fairly common, though I try to ask for a wooden crate to ensure better protection, especially when I know my product will be placed in a container with many other customers’ one-off shipments.
It took around six weeks for the ship to make its way from China to California, where it off-loaded the container and Hector’s shipment was stripped and prepared for land transport.
The factory’s freight forwarder handled the customs clearance process and booked the ATV with a trucking service to send it inland on the long journey to Kentucky.
Another week and a half later, a lift-gate truck rolled up to Hector’s driveway and off-loaded the package.
There it was, in all its standing electric ATV glory.
Somehow it had travelled from the factory in China to a Kentucky driveway for a mere $1,295. As someone who has imported more than his fair share of weird vehicles from China, believe me when I tell you how extraordinarily rare that is.
Just trucking alone could easily cost that much for a trip from California to Kentucky. Just the customs charges on this type of vehicle should have cost that much, especially considering this should have been subject to 25% tariffs for Chinese goods imported to the US (and it isn’t on the exclusion list).
Either the factory’s freight forwarder did some shady magic to slip this ATV through for so cheap, or they didn’t realize how much transit charges, arrival charges, customs charges, broker fees and cross-country trucking would cost in the end.
But whatever the reason, Hector managed to land this thing for a total of just under US $6,100.
Unpacking the cage showed very minimal damage to the vehicle from shipping. “The shipping package received some damage on the metal housing, but only the skin of the brake line was damaged,” Hector explained to me. “There was also an issue with the turn signal lights. I communicated with the seller, and they have shipped the rear and front turn lights with the wire assembly and the brake line. They also sent me videos on how to fix it.”
So far, Hector seems quite satisfied with the electric standing ATV. “The vehicle is well made, and I’m happy with my transaction.”
And by the look of his dog, the pup doesn’t seem to mind, either.
A word of caution on Alibaba purchases
I enjoy sharing these stories because it’s fun to see what kinds of things people can find and bring home. Alibaba is full of weird electric vehicles, largely because China leads the world in electric vehicle design and manufacturing. I’ve bought electric mini-trucks, e-ATVs, e-boats, electric construction equipment, e-bikes, e-motorcycles, and more. And with enough experience (and enough mistakes made in the past), it usually goes pretty well for me now.
But I always advise against anyone actually following my lead. Hector was surprisingly successful here, but it doesn’t always go this well. I’ve heard from multiple people who tried to buy electric mini-trucks similar to mine, only to have the shipment stopped by Customs and Border Patrol for one reason or another and not allowed into the country.
I’ve seen batteries shoot sparks and let out smoke the first time I turn the product on.
I’ve had vendors simply ghost me, nowhere to be found anymore.
I’ve had Alibaba auto-approve delivery of my products while they’re still in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, releasing my funds in escrow to the vendor.
It’s a dangerous game fraught with risk and pitfalls. So while it can be fun to live vicariously through people like Hector and myself, I don’t recommend trying this at home. At least not unless you’re willing to lay down $6,000 with the understanding that you might never see it again.
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An Angus ranch in southern Oregon has become the test case for a new kind of cattle-friendly solar, hosting RUTE SunTracker’s first commercial project.
The one‑acre, 120‑kilowatt array is the first real‑world installation of RUTE’s patented, cable‑stayed solar tracker designed specifically to coexist with grazing cattle. RUTE supplies the hardware and is also acting as the developer for its first regional cattle‑plus‑solar demonstrations.
What makes the setup different is the clearance. The tracker system provides about 10 feet of headroom, with panel heights reaching up to 16 feet across the array. That gives cattle full access to the pasture underneath while allowing ranchers to keep managing the land as usual. The project is interconnected to Pacific Power’s grid in Jackson County, Oregon.
Projects like this are getting more attention as the solar industry runs into land‑use limits. In the US alone, about 30 gigawatts of new solar capacity installed last year covered roughly 150,000 acres. Meanwhile, the country has close to 120 million acres of cattle pasture, much of it facing rising heat and water stress.
That’s where agrivoltaics come in. By adding solar to working pastureland, ranchers can create a second revenue stream while improving growing conditions for forage through partial shade.
“Within weeks of installing the RUTE canopy, the crew observed leafier forage and increased legume presence inside the array compared to outside,” RUTE president Doug Krause said. “Even on irrigated pasture, direct summer sun can be too intense.”
RUTE’s work has been supported by grants from the US Department of Energy’s American‑Made Solar Prize and the US Department of Agriculture. In October, Oregon State University’s Agrivoltaics Program began quantitative studies at the site to measure pasture production, adding hard data to what ranchers are already seeing on the ground.
Next, RUTE plans to take the project on the road. This winter, the company will present at cattlemen’s association meetings as it looks for ranch partners with onsite electric loads, such as irrigation pivot systems.
“In the near term, our focus is on regional, behind‑the‑meter installations so ranchers and power producers can see the equipment operating in real conditions,” Krause said. “While interconnection timelines are long, these projects allow us to build momentum as we connect with developers and ranches on utility‑scale pipeline.”
Read more: Sunrun + NRG launch a virtual power plant to ease Texas power demand
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Environment
Tesla rental fleet that bought into Elon Musk’s self-driving lies goes bankrupt due to depreciation
Dutch leasing company Mistergreen, known for its “Tesla only” fleet and bold bets on a future of autonomous robotaxis, is reportedly facing bankruptcy. The company’s financial collapse highlights the danger of buying into Elon Musk’s claims that Tesla vehicles would become “appreciating assets”—a prediction that has faced a harsh reality check in the used EV market.
According to reports from Europe, the Dutch Tesla-only car rental firm Mistergreen has wiped out its bondholders and is selling off its operations.
Mistergreen had built its entire business model around the premise of operating a fleet of Tesla vehicles that would not only hold their value but eventually generate revenue as robotaxis.
Instead, the company has been forced to write down millions in fleet value as Tesla aggressively cut new car prices over the last two years, pulling the rug out from under used EV prices, and never delivered on its promise of consumer vehicles becoming robotaxis.
Back in 2019, Elon Musk famously claimed that Tesla vehicles were now “appreciating assets” because of their Full Self-Driving (FSD) capability. He stated:
“I think the most profound thing is that if you buy a Tesla today, I believe you are buying an appreciating asset – not a depreciating asset.”
He even went so far as to suggest that a Tesla Model 3 could be worth $100,000 to $200,000 as a revenue-generating robotaxi. Mistergreen bought into that claim and was essentially a leveraged bet on this exact scenario.
They wrote their annual report in 2022:
Our focus is driven by the fact that Tesla’s electric vehicles are currently the highest quality electric vehicles on the market (in terms of battery quality, software updates, efficiency and range, charging network and speed), their hardware and software are prepared for future self-driving cars, and the quality and range of the Tesla (supercharger) charging network is superior. As a result, there is a significant market demand for Tesla’s and we anticipate that Tesla’s will have better residual value in the future due to the good quality of the Tesla’s currently on the market.
However, as we discussed in an article earlier this year about Elon Musk’s biggest lie, the reality has been the exact opposite. Tesla vehicles have depreciated faster than the industry average, exacerbated by Tesla’s own decision to slash prices to maintain demand and by the fact that it never delivered on its promise that software updates would make its consumer vehicles autonomous without supervision.
At its peak, Mistergreen had a fleet of over 4,000 Tesla vehicles, which is impressive, but it meant that it was hit even harder by the depreciation.
For buyers, a cheaper Tesla is great news. For owners or leasing companies holding thousands of them on their books, with high residual-value guarantees, it’s a death sentence.
Mistergreen had issued bonds to buy the Tesla vehicles, but it hasn’t been able to repay them since last year. It’s unclear how much of investors’ money has been wiped out by the bet, but it is in the tens of millions of dollars.
A couple of Dutch, Belgian, and German leasing companies will purchase the remaining fleet.
Electrek reached out to CEO Florian Minderop and co-founder Mark Schreurs for comments, but we didn’t hear back by the time of publishing.
Electrek’s Take
They believed Elon and they lost tens of millions of dollars worth of investors’ money for it.
We have been saying for years that while FSD is impressive, there’s no evidence that it can reach level 4 autonomy in consumer vehicles. Banking on it turning cars into appreciating robotaxis in the near term is financial suicide.
Musk has been promising “1 million robotaxis by the end of the year” since 2020. It’s now late 2025, and while we have seen progress, we only have a small pilot program in a geo-fenced area in Texas under constant supervision, and certainly don’t have a fleet of appreciating assets.
If you bought a Tesla for $50,000 in 2022 expecting it to be worth $100,000 today, you are likely disappointed. If you bought 4,000 of them with borrowed money, you are Mistergreen.
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Kia is offering generous discounts on its EVs with low finance rates and thousands in savings across its entire lineup.
What deals is Kia currently running on its EVs?
After launching a promotion in the US offering over $10,000 off the EV6, EV9, and Niro EV this month, Kia is now extending the savings overseas.
Kia introduced a New Year’s offer in the UK on Tuesday, offering savings across its entire range, including electric vehicles.
The new deal offers generous finance deposit contributions (FDC) of up to £3,000 ($4,000) toward all EV3 models, plus the EV4 GT-Line and GT-Line S trims. A £1,500 ($2,000) FDC is available toward the EV4 Fastback (sedan), EV5, EV6, EV6 GT, EV9, and EV9 GT. The EV4 Air grade is available with a £1,000 ($1,300) FDC.
Kia is also offering a low 3.9% APR across its entire EV lineup, considerably lower than the 5.9% APR for the new Sportage and the 7.9% APR for the Picanto, K4, Niro PHEV, and Sorento.
And that’s not all. Current Kia drivers looking to upgrade can save an extra £1,000 ($1,300) with the “Kia EV Finance Upgrade” loyalty incentive.
The New Year’s EV deals run from December 17, 2025, to March 31, 2026. Kia is also offering two years of free service on all electric models through its “Discover Your Kia EV” campaign, available on all EV3, EV4, EV4 Fastback, EV5, EV6, EV9, and PV5 Passenger grades and variants.
On Friday, the EV4 and PV5 Passenger became the brand’s first vehicle eligible for the UK’s Electric Car Grant. Buyers can now earn £1,500 ($2,000) off the on-the-road purchase price for the EV4 Air and PV5 Passenger Essential and Plus trims.
Although not exactly a promotion, Kia launched the EV4 as Canada’s most affordable EV this week. Starting at under $40,000, Kia’s electric sedan (fastback) is even cheaper than the tiny Fiat 500e.
For those in the US, don’t worry, Kia is offering some pretty great year-end deals, including over $10,000 in savings across its entire EV lineup.
The 2025 Kia EV6 and Niro EV are available with up to $11,000 in customer cash, while the larger EV9 is listed with $10,500 in customer cash.
If you’re looking to finance, Kia is offering 0% APR for up to 72 months, plus $3,500 APR Bonus Cash on the EV6 and Niro EV. The three-row Kia EV9 is available with 0% APR for up to 60 months and a $3,000 APR Bonus Cash offer. In the US, Kia’s “New Traditions” sales event runs until January 2, 2026.
Kia’s deals are generous, but its sister company, Hyundai, may have it beat. You can lease a Hyundai IONIQ 5 right now for as low as $189 per month. That’s about as cheap as EV leases get right now.
If you’re wondering what deals are available in your area, you can find local offers using the links below.
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