After yesterday’s story lamenting the swollen battery issues I’m having with my Changli, the cheapest new car in the world, just for the hell of it I thought I’d see what Changli prices were like now, and what sort of new models were available. I saw that prices had gone up a bit, but they’re still dirt cheap, and, more importantly, I saw they’re still using pictures of me and my Changli on their Alibaba ordering pages. I’m amused to be the unpaid and seemingly official (?) American face of Changli, even with my current bloated battery woes.
Look at all the screengrabs they’re using from my videos! I love it. Also, I’m pretty sure they thought David and I were a couple at one point. Whatever helps them sell cars! Fine by me.
As you can see, the Changli lineup is pretty vast, and these seem to be just their four-wheeler options; there’s lots of three-wheel ones, too. It looks like mine, the Freeman, has gone up in price to $1,450, but a new $1,291 model is available too with different bodywork and, it seems, lacking the opening rear door. There’s also trucks and even full-sized, real-seeming cars, too, for about $20 grand. I’m really curious about those $10,000 options, too.
I need to get out to the Changli factory and really see what they’ve got going on. This is all just too fascinating.
Perhaps Paul Weller’s “Changing Man” as a music alternative?
Oh you just know that if you visit the Changli factories there are cardboard cutouts of Jason everywhere, and repurposed WWJD bracelets/attire everywhere.
Haven’t you always a Changli man? 😀
Ha, I even saw Donut had a copycat-ish video of “cheapest pickup in the world!” or something with another Changli. (Didn’t have time to watch, just saw it in my YouTube suggestions.)
You’ve started something, I guess. You’ve got imitators now.
If I owned a non-functional car that I couldn’t be arsed to fix for almost a year, I might question why I owned that car at all.
But if you could write wildly popular articles about it, the value proposition changes a bit.
Oh. Fair point.
I want that single cab pickup one so much. I wonder if I could justify it as a way to haul tools and building supplies around our mountain bike trails…
Yes, go to China and tour the factory. It would make a great story.
It has more or less already been done !
https://www.theautopian.com/a-deep-dive-on-the-changli-and-similar-cheap-cars-like-it/
Hmm, if you could work out a VIP tour of the Changli factory, maybe you could combine it with a trip to also check out those wacky rear engine three wheelers Fulu builds – they’re in Shandong, that’s just the next province up, practically neighbors
Make the factory tour the next level of Autopian membership.
It’s a better than average golf cart at a fair price, with a good spokesman!
I’d actually be really interested in an article series on the manufacturer. Chinese cars tend to be a black void of anonymity that randomly announce reasonable looking cars at low prices that we’ll never see or knock off looking cars at suspicious prices that can’t be really in production. Would be nice to see the people behind the scenes building these things!
I think some of the business practices are part of the secret sauce, better leave them, well, secret. In my town, a few Chinese owners of competing sushi businesses got into gun play, because one accused his former apprentices of stealing his bussiness secrets aka methods to eek out the thinnest of profits while keeping prices ridiculously low. Sometimes you don’t really need a deep dive, but to keep a bit of mystique and not the Mercury kind.
“I need to get out to the Changli factory and really see what they’ve got going on”
Yes, yes, and yes! I am sure Tycho can help you out, but Changli already loves you so that probably won’t even be necessary.
I love everything about the Changli!
I love its styling. I love its affordability. I love its practicality. I love its “Fashion” decal. I love the story of how you imported it. I love the tests you’ve put it through and the way it excelled far better than a vehicle at its price point could be expected to perform. I love the way the company shamelessly rips off your photos and video stills and uses them in their advertising.
Most of all, I love how happy it makes you. I can feel the joy while reading your writeups about it. I hope that the battery replacement is a relatively quick and easy fix because I really want you to get back behind the wheel again soon.
I believe they thought you and David might be a couple, but a couple of what?
Please, oh please, take it to CarMax for an appraisal. Put on your best wide-eyed innocent face and ask them if they have a Yugo.
To really fly the flag as the Hollywood half of Chang-Li’s power couple, David should trade in his i3 for one of those options at the $10k price point.
Batteries for cars are about $120-$300. So, let’s suggest $200 a piece for the size you have. That’s $1000 for replacement. You’re not buying the Lithium one for $800 why?????
He’s looking at some NiCad replacements
Excellent, thanks! I wonder how difficult a motor swap would be too? I’m assuming alibaba has some cheap upgrades.
Maybe while you’re at the factory grab a couple of new batteries?
Uh-Oh looks like the Freeman now has a minimum order qty of 2. One for each of the Happy Couple in the ads I guess
If Jason ever gets the ChangLi running again, he needs to re-skin it with Chun Li graphics… you know, the the character from the Street Fighter series.
This is Jason, not David. He’ll get the pop culture reference. 🙂
The Chang-Li “Torch” is now a minimum order of 2 though. So it’s the cheapest, but you have to have one, and a spare.
Imma jump all over that one that’s a “hot sale in Unite States”
Unite and Canada Sates! That sounds like it’s in the ballpark of where I live!
[Insert “approximate knowledge of many things” from Adventure Time here.]
David and Jason in a Changli K-I-S-S-I-N-G
David and Jason in a Changli W-R-E-N-C-H-I-N-G
Or in an ambulance after the batteries explode and they’re not wearing PPE.
David and Jason and Otto 24 hours in a Chang-li
Oh dear. I do not like where this is going.
“Oh dear. I do not like where this is going.”
Cannibalism. Do you think it’s going toward cannibalism?
I like that 1635-1650 version… It strikes the appropriate balance between stylish and ridiculous.
“These American lovers go everywhere together in their Chang Li”.
Especially Virginia?
Haven’t we all?
They’re not?
I believe they dated for a bit, but Jason’s wife didn’t really like finding spaghetti in the shower drain, and Jason chose the mother of his child over his soulmate. It was pretty sad, actually.
There’s a Hallmark movie in the works starring David Spade and Johnny Galecki. Working title is Sparky & Rusty.
Now I have that song as an earworm with an odd sounding Neil Young “Changli” stuck in there like a really bad late night TV bleep of a profanity.
For me it’s Dolly Parton. “Changli, Changli, Changli, Changliiiiiiiiii… I’m beggin’ of you, please don’t take my man…”