The rise of micro EVs

Tiny electric vehicles (EVs) are one solution to lessening the strain of motoring on ever-more crowded cities, with several manufacturers launching covetable mini cars.

The Microlino is a tiny electric vehicle from the Swiss family behind the Micro range of scooters: Wim, Oliver, and Merlin Ouboter. This two-seater car, inspired by 1950s bubble cars, was conceived to answer the question, the brand says, of “how much car do you really need?” Designed to charge in four hours, “like a smartphone,” using a household electrical socket, the vehicle takes up only a third of the parking space of conventional cars. The car goes up to 90 kilometers per hour and weighs just under 500 kilos, and made its debut in the UK in 2024.

WEB png Microlino Dolce Paris Mint 1 — Microline Dolce Paris Mint

The Fiat Topolino, which launched in 2023, this year revealed an edition designed by Italian motor atelier Castagna Milano, called the Fiat Topolino Spiaggina. Its design takes inspiration from Riva yachts, with wicker seats, a blue and white striped hood, and sleek walnut accents. Meanwhile, Korea’s Hyundai in June launched the Hyundai Inster, an A-segment sub-compact EV. The manufacturer says the car, positioned between A-segment and B-segment compact models, boasts a “rugged road presence,” making it “ideal for city driving and [to] boost convenience when parking.” It was unveiled in Korea this summer, and will subsequently be available in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific.

WEB Hyundai Inster2 — Hyundai Inster. Courtesy of Hyundai

The tagline for the Israeli company City Transformer’s tiny EV is “drive like a car, park like a motorcycle,” as its wheels contract when it’s in city mode, to fit into smaller spaces. The vehicle is set to launch in Western Europe by the end of 2024 and is currently available for pre-order. The car is 1 meter wide in its city mode and can reportedly expand to 1.4 meters for its performance mode, in which it can drive at up to 90 kilometers an hour. Speaking to Reuters in 2023, City Transformer’s CEO Asaf Formoza questioned whether "there [is] a reason a person like you or me needs to maneuver in the city in a two-ton car and 600 kilograms of battery?" In contrast, the City Transformer weighs just 450 kilos.

And in China, the Wuling Hongguang Mini has become the country’s most popular EV, selling 1.2 million units “often to consumers with lower incomes in provincial cities and smaller towns.”

Admittedly, while they’re getting plenty of attention, these tiny EVs don’t currently make up a large proportion of electric vehicle sales, Elizabeth Connelly, energy technology and transport analyst at the International Energy Agency, tells VML Intelligence. She notes that “electric mini-vehicles, or quadricycles [the category into which the Topolino and Microlino fall] represented less than 0.2% of electric car sales in 2023 – about 25,000 were sold.” In Europe, they represented 0.8% of electric car sales. Connelly notes that this number is in contrast to the “around 180,000 electric two-wheelers – motorcycles and scooters, but not including electric pedal bicycles – [that] were sold in Europe in 2023.”

Choosing an electric mini-car over a larger vehicle has cost and sustainability benefits – they require less energy and less battery materials.

Elizabeth Connelly

Energy technology and transport analyst at the International Energy Agency

“The…role of these electric mini cars is quite limited, less than even smaller electric two-wheelers,” says Connelly. “However, there are clearly some benefits of the mini cars in dense urban settings and so it’s unclear what longer term role they might play. Certainly, choosing an electric mini-car over a larger vehicle has cost and sustainability benefits – they require less energy and less battery materials, however they can’t offer the same functionality or comfort in terms of longer trips.”

Indeed, even though these tiny vehicles’ profile is growing, this is against a backdrop in which their motoring opposite, SUVs, surpassed a 50% market share in advanced economies in 2023, the IEA reports, with only 5% of SUVs currently on the road electric. SUVs’ appeal as a “status symbol” is cited by the IEA as one of the drivers behind the trend. And their environmental impact is significant, with the IEA noting that “if SUVs were a country, they would be the world’s fifth largest emitter of CO2.”

Connelly at the IEA adds that “based on today’s trend towards SUVs – both conventional and electric – it’s likely some policy intervention would be required to significantly shift consumer demand from larger cars and SUVs towards these mini-cars.”

It seems that while tiny EVs no doubt score on convenience and lack of emissions, in order to challenge the current dominance of larger vehicles, there’s some way to go for consumers’ perception of what they want from a car – and what a car means to them - to change.