Remember the good old days of your youth, taking road trips with your family and giving truckers the arm signal to blow their air horns? What if I told you that you could soon be blowing your very own air horn in your very own electric semitruck? It’s a real possibility, now that the great dollar store of the internet known as Alibaba is stocking electric tractor trailers!
And fortunately enough, this kind of thing is just odd enough to make it into this week’s rendition of the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week!
As much as I love smaller EVs like electric bicycles and e-scooters, and as much as I want to see cities rid of cars and trucks, there’s likely always going to be a place for big rigs on our roads.
These powerful semitrailer trucks connect cities and deliver vital goods. They’re an unfortunate reality, but they don’t have to suck.
We’ve already seen some interesting electric options, and of course, Elon Musk has gotten into the game with the Tesla Semi. But what if you wanted your own electric 18-wheeler, and you wanted it now?
Fortunately for you, me, and all the other grown-up kids at heart, you can get a direct-from-China electric tractor trailer today!
This thing is loaded with all of the best features. There’s seating for two and even a sleeper bed, so you can camp out and save money on motels!
There’s a 6-speed automatic transmission, electronic stability control (whatever that is), and even air conditioning. The air conditioning type is listed as “manual” though, and I’m hoping that doesn’t mean it comes with a hand crank like an emergency flashlight. Perhaps it’s best to just crack a window.
On the power side, this is perhaps the biggest motor ever to grace a vehicle in this Alibaba column. Even so, it doesn’t sound quite so big when you consider what this behemoth is meant to pull. The 230 kW motor is surely still ready though to slowly lug you up to an undisclosed top speed.
The 281 kWh battery pack is apparently good enough for 200 km (120 miles) of range. Somehow that doesn’t feel like a full day of trucking, but we’ll cross that interstate bridge when we get there.
I’m really struggling to find a way to justify buying this thing as, until today, I didn’t realize that I had an electric-tractor-trailer-shaped hole in my heart.
I have absolutely zero use for this thing, but that has never stopped me from buying an electric truck from China before.
At a price of $78,888, though, for this awesome electric truck, I’m not sure who is going to murder me first – my wife or my accountant.
Perhaps it’s better if I leave the semitrucks to the professionals and stick to my lighter EVs. I’m not looking forward to taking that commercial driver’s license course anyway.
If you want to explore a few of the other large format Alibaba electric vehicles I’ve stumbled upon lately, then you’re in for a treat. Consider checking out this Tiger-shaped tourist bus that would be perfect for a Tiger King zoo tour group.
Or you can get your feet wet with a full-sized electric submarine! On second thought, it’s probably best if your feet stay dry in that one.
For me, I think I’ll stick to EVs that I outweigh, at least for now. But if I ever want to go all in on an Optimus Prime cosplay, I know where to start.
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