Chinese Electric Car Costing $6,000 Approved for Sale in the U.S.
Kandi, a Chinese car company that sells electric vehicles, has just announced that both its models have received the required clearance from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) via Certificates of Conformity.
What this means is that Kandi is ready to start sales of the Kandi K27 and Kandi K23 on U.S. soil. And we’ll be keeping an eye on them, for sure.
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Why? Because they are set to become the cheapest electric vehicles on the market by far.
The Kandi K27, for instance, carries an MSRP of $20,499, with the first 1,000 units costing $17,499. With the federal rebate of $7,500, the price drops to $9,999.
But wait, there’s more. Some U.S. states like Colorado also offer EV incentives of up to $4,000, which brings the total further down to $5,999. At the current exchange rate, that’s equivalent to just $7,830 CAD.
It’s pretty amazing when you think that customers will pay for less than half of the car and American taxpayers will assume the rest.
Of course, this is not a product made for everyone. Visually, the K27 looks like a bad cross between a MINI Cooper and a Fiat 500L. It offers four seats only and has a top speed limited at 101 km/h, which makes it hardly usable on the highway.
As for range, the small 17.7-kWh battery provides a mere 95 kilometres according to the EPA. Meanwhile, the larger Kandi K23, which will cost about $10,000 USD more, uses a 41.4-kWh battery allowing a range of 179 kilometres, or two more than the electric Cooper SE.
All things considered, should we wish for Kandi to come to Canada, too?