The Wuling Hongguang Mini EV is so cheap, because it's made using stuff you can find at home

The Wuling Hongguang Mini EV is a little electric vehicle (EV) that’s been making waves bigger than its 12-inch wheels can ever suggest: it’s been outselling Teslas and traversing floods in China, and its entry into Thailand and Indonesia have also got Malaysians excited.

Part of the massive sales numbers and interest – Chinese customers have bought over 500,000 of these since June 2019 – comes from its ludicrously cheap price, which ranges from CNY 28,800 to CNY 48,600 (~RM 19k to RM 32k).

Also read: Cheap EVs for less than RM 100k? Here are the top-5 models

How can it be so cheap? That’s a question a professor from Nagoya University has answered, and his findings can be quite…shocking.

It probably has a bit of your oven

Professor Masayoshi Yamamoto found that SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile’s trick is using cheap, not-very-durable parts, but assembled in a way that makes them easy to replace.

Nikkei reports that the Japan Management Association imported one unit of the Mini EV (priced at CNY 38,800 (~RM 26k), and professor Yamamoto and his team disassembled the car after an event.

Through that exercise, he estimated that the total cost of the vehicle’s parts and assembly were at CNY 26,582 (~RM 17,700).

Part of the cost savings come from the Mini EV lacking a regenerative braking system, which is usually essential in extending an EV’s range. As a result, maximum range from its 13.9 kWh battery is only 170 km, making it sufficient as a car that “is driven only in nearby areas”, said Yamamoto.

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This exclusion also enables the use of simple electrical equipment. The inverter – which converts direct current into alternating current – only costs about $140 (RM 588), a big drop from the usual price of $530 (RM 2,227).

Costs were further reduced by the use of common parts and components. For example, the speed reducer – which adjusts the torque of the motor – uses commodity ball bearings in place of specially-designed ones, but both still meet performance requirements.

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The components also use chips found in home appliances (made by Western companies such as Texas Instruments and Infineon Technologies), instead of highly durable, automotive-specific ones.

It’s also air-cooled only. But as we know, heat is the enemy, so the inverter’s expected life span has been set at 8 years, or 120,000 km. Definitely a far cry from how EVs are usually designed to last 20 years, or 200,000 km.

How does Wuling counteract this?

Wuling handles this shorter life span in another way: the Mini EV is designed so its inverter and other modules can be easily replaced, Yamamoto said. Through this step, they are designed to be easily replaced as modules, and repair work is easy to complete.

For what it’s worth, the Mini EV and its ilk are used by people getting around short distances, such as to public transport stations, and that's where it excels.

Also read: MAA: Only 274 EVs were sold last year in Malaysia, less than 1,000 units registered so far